'Thousands of English patients go to Wales for free prescriptions'

More NHS weirdness

Tens of thousands of English patients could be registering with Welsh GPs and making day-trips to the country to obtain free prescriptions, it was claimed yesterday. Statistics show that three million people are registered with Welsh GPs, about 100,000 more than the official population. Wales is the only part of Britain not to have prescription charges. England has the highest at 7.10 pounds, followed by Northern Ireland at 6.85 and Scotland at 5 pounds.


The Conservative Party in Wales claimed that the figures pointed to patients from England travelling to Wales and called on the Welsh Assembly executive to stop "prescription tourism". Darren Millar, a Tory member of the assembly, said: "It has long been my suspicion that prescription tourism is rife in my constituency. We must tackle it sooner rather than later." The Tories suspect that English people could be using the addresses of friends and relatives in Wales to register.

However, David Bailey, the British Medical Association chairman in Wales, said: "The extra patients may be students or people who have come to Wales to work." An assembly spokesman said: "There is no evidence to suggest that patients are coming to Wales to benefit from free prescriptions. There has historically been a difference between the number of people registered with GPs and the population. "It is a long-standing problem across the UK and is mainly caused by people registering with a new practice before de-registering with their existing practice."

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