Bringing back prescription charges in Northern Ireland would create 'life and death decisions'

A pharmacy spokesperson has told UTV that any charge on prescriptions for Northern Ireland patients would represent "a tax on the ill".

Gerard Greene, who is the Chief Executive of Community Pharmacy NI, was responding to a leaked Northern Ireland Office briefing note on the Stormont budget, which indicates a potential for the Government to take a tough financial stance in the months ahead.

The document states the Executive is "losing over £700m a year by failing to introduce revenue raising measures".

It details how Stormont could generate this revenue every year by charging:

  • £30m if there was no free bus/ train travel for over 60s

  • £20m if free prescriptions were scrapped

  • £141m if university tuition fees were at the same level as in England and Wales

  • £345m if water charges were introduced as in other parts of the UK

  • £289 if charges were imposed for domiciliary care

Leading Northern Ireland Economist, Dr Esmond Birnie, told UTV tough decisions are inevitable.

He said: "The Northern Ireland budget is in a very powerless state, so either levels of spending are cut or you get drastic reforms in how public services are delivered here or, alternatively, you raise additional revenues.

"It's very hard to see what other options really there are out there."

Gerard Greene told UTV there's an important reason why prescription charges were abolished back in 2010.

"Patients often said 'what medicines can I afford to do without because I can't afford the prescription charges', so those are the real life and death decisions that patients are facing whenever they are potentially having to pay for prescription charges.

"We as health care professionals just want to provide the healthcare and the medication that the doctors are prescribing and not that there should be a financial hurdle there for the patient to overcome as well."

For now, these are just options that are being considered.

The reality is that time, planning and investment would all be needed to make any long-term changes.

Even if the Secretary of State decided to go ahead with some charges, it wouldn't be an overnight fix.

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