An increase in dispensed items proves that patients with long-term conditions are better off since prescription fees were scrapped in 2011, the Scottish government has claimed.  

The number of items dispensed for asthma had increased by nearly 237,000 since prescription charges were abolished, the Scottish government said last week (September 17). Items dispensed for Crohn's disease had increased by more than 10,000 over this period.  

"I am proud that in Scotland we took the decision to improve access to prescriptions for all" Alex Neil, health secretary, Scotland	More on pharmacy in Scotland GPs whip up opposition to pharmacy bid on remote       Scottish isle Scotland secures two-year funding hike including       new service Scottish review urges pharmacy to shed       'supply function' image
	Scottish health secretary Alex Neil said prescription charges were "nothing more than a tax on ill health" that Scotland's poorest families "could ill afford". "I am proud that in Scotland we took the decision to improve access to prescriptions for all," he added.

The revenue lost from prescription charges was balanced out by the money saved from not having to administer the charges system, said Community Pharmacy Scotland policy development pharmacist Matthew Barclay. "It's allowed [pharmacists] to focus on getting the prescriptions done accurately and providing advice and care, rather than being a tax collector," he told C+D.  

However, pharmacist Fiona McElrea of Whithorn Pharmacy, Wigtownshire said that although scrapping prescription charges had "opened up healthcare to everybody", it had also encouraged medicines waste. "If everybody had to pay a very small minimal charge for each prescription, there would be a lot less medicines waste," she told C+D.  

Patients in England were "disadvantaged" because it was the only country in the UK that still charged for prescriptions, the Royal Pharmaceutical Society (RPS) said in response to the Scottish government's statement.  

"Work we have done with charities shows that one in three people with a long-term condition who pay for medicines haven't collected an item because of cost. Removing charges for these people would make a big difference to their health," said RPS spokesperson Neal Patel.  

The number of respiratory corticosteroids dispensed in Scotland each year went up by 87,328 - a rise of 4.9 per cent - between 2011 and 2013, according to data published by NHS Scotland's Information Services Division in June.  

This was similar to the rise in England in one year - the number of respiratory corticosteroids dispensed increased by 5.1 per cent between 2011 and 2012, despite patients still having to pay a charge, according to the most recent figures from the NHS Health and Social Care Information Centre (HSCIC).  

In March, health groups called on the government to abolish prescription charges for patients with long-term conditions in England, after finding that more than a third were going without medication because of the cost.  

Last month, four fifths of pharmacists who responded to a C+D poll said they wanted prescription payment exemptions to be replaced by a universal charge.