Saturday, April 19, 2008

UK Prescription Tourism

Telegraph:
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, followed by Northern Ireland at £6.85 and Scotland at £5.

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.
Ah, socialized medicine -- national health care designed by a committee and managed by regional bureaucracies.

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