The government must exempt all medicines sold by pharmacies in England from a proposed 5p plastic bag charge, or risk confusing patients, Pharmacy Voice has said.

The pharmacy body called for England to follow the example of Wales and Northern Ireland by exempting pharmacies from charging for bags that contain prescription and pharmacy-only medicines and appliances, in its response to a government consultation which ran from November 25 to December 20, 2013.

It also recommended the exemption be expanded to include GSL items "in the interest of simplicity". Charging patients for bags of GSL items in Wales and Northern Ireland had been "relatively straightforward" but patients did not understand the difference between medicine classifications, it said.

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	Consumers would get confused if they had to pay for a bag when they bought a GSL pack of paracetamol, but did not need to when they purchased a larger (pharmacy-only) pack, it added.

The charge for single-use plastic bags, which is due to come into force in October 2015, will apply to businesses with more than 250 employees, who will be expected to donate the proceeds to charity.

In its consultation, the government proposed that businesses provide annual reports on the costs associated with administering the charge. But Pharmacy Voice said pharmacies should only have to publish the number of plastic bags they sold annually and how the money from the charge was used, as providing further information would be an "administrative burden" that prevented pharmacists from providing patient care.

The complex nature of the consultation's proposals, which exclude paper and biodegradable bags, needed to be communicated to the public in a marketing campaign paid for by the government, Pharmacy Voice added.

The Royal Pharmaceutical Society expected a "sensible compromise" to be applied in England if bag charges were introduced, it told C+D last week (January 3).

In September, multiples warned against fully applying the bag charge to pharmacies in England, but disagreed on the level of exemption.

England is the last country in the UK to agree on a mandatory plastic bag charge, following the implementation of charges in Wales in 2011 and in Northern Ireland in April 2013. Scotland is due to implement a similar system this year.

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