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Prescription charge plan unveiled Staged end to presciption charges
(about 6 hours later)
Scotland's health minister is expected to reveal her detailed plans to abolish prescription charges. Scottish ministers have decided against immediately scrapping prescription charges for the chronically ill.
It is thought that the charges will be stopped immediately for people with chronic health conditions. Health Secretary Nicola Sturgeon instead announced a series of cuts in the charges, ahead of their planned abolition in 2011.
Nicola Sturgeon is expected to say that they will be phased out for everyone else over the next three years. She told MSPs they were a "tax on ill health", while Labour has expressed reservations about the move.
The cost of a single prescription is to be cut by more than 25% in 2008, followed by further yearly reductions.
Ms Sturgeon said the cost of pre-payment certificates - which cover a person's prescription costs over a 12-month period - would be cut from almost £100 to under £50 from next April, to benefit people suffering from chronic and long-term conditions.
She said that compiling a list of conditions for instant exemption may have taken until 2009.
The problem is that many people with long-term conditions that are not already exempt from charges simply can't afford the right medication Nicola Sturgeon,Health secretary
"This government believes that prescription charges are a tax on ill health," Ms Sturgeon told the Scottish Parliament.
"We also believe they are a barrier to good health for too many people."
The health secretary said that more and more people were living with long-term conditions.
"Many of those long-term conditions can, with the right support and medication, be self-managed by patients in their own homes, enabling them to go on enjoying a good quality of life," she said.
Gradually reduced
"The problem is that many people with long-term conditions that are not already exempt from charges simply can't afford the right medication."
In April next year, the cost for a single prescription will be cut from £6.85 to £5 and will be further reduced by £1 in each of the two subsequent years before abolition, just before the next Holyrood election.
The cost of pre-payment certificates will also be cut over the same timescale, coming down at first from £98.70 to £48, then down to £38 and finally £28, before they are ended.
The move is similar to developments in Wales where prescription charges were gradually reduced from 2000 and abolished altogether this year.The move is similar to developments in Wales where prescription charges were gradually reduced from 2000 and abolished altogether this year.
In Scotland, the cost of phasing out the charges over the next three years could be about £97m. Last year, MSPs voted to keep prescription charges in Scotland, when the Labour/Liberal Democrat administration was still in power.
In January last year, MSPs voted to keep prescription charges, after a debate at Holyrood.
A motion to abolish the charge was proposed by the Scottish Socialists and supported by the SNP and the Greens, but it was defeated by 77 votes to 44.
Paying patients in Scotland are currently charged £6.85 for prescriptions.