The government is planning to give High Street pharmacists access to Department of Work and Pensions IT systems to check whether patients in England are entitled to free prescriptions.
The move was briefed to a number of newspapers by junior health minister Dan Poulter, who presented it as part of a crack-down on NHS prescription fraud that will also see past entitlements checked and offenders fined.
Poulter was quoted in the Daily Mail saying: “This abuse of the NHS must stop. Claiming a free prescription when you are not entitled to one takes money away from other frontline patient services.”
However, the Royal Pharmaceutical Society has already said that the new measures could affect trust between patients and pharmacists.
Its chair, David Branford, told the BBC: “This move to make pharmacists police the government’s unfair charging system is totally unacceptable to us. Our job is to put the needs of vulnerable people first, and to make sure they get the care they need.”
Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have all scrapped prescription charges, on the grounds that they are expensive to collect and may prevent some patients from taking all the drugs they are prescribed.
In England, some 90% of prescriptions do not carry a charge. Despite this, Poulter is quoted saying the move will generate around £150 million.
Although the crack-down is being widely reported, there are few details of what most papers describe as a new IT system, and there is no formal announcement of one on the Department of Health or NHS England websites.
The DH runs schemes that enable people on low incomes and people who are claiming the new universal credit to claim free prescriptions and to get help with other medical costs.
It appears that today’s announcement is linked to the roll-out of this benefit, which has been severely delayed, but is due to reach one in three job centres this spring.
The Express says the “IT system will enable [pharmacy] staff to check Department of Work and Pensions records on the spot” to see whether they qualify."
This will concern privacy campaigners and opponents of the “database state”; who oppose the use of information for purposes for which it was not originally collected, or to track individuals’ use of state and other services.
Being able to prove entitlement to NHS services was touted as one of the benefits of an English ID card a decade ago. However, the plans were defeated; not least by the opposition of now-Prime Minister David Cameron, who promised to scrap them in the run-up to the last general election.