Queries regarding payments made by the General Medical Services (Payments) Board to community pharmacists arise, in the main, from over deduction of £42 from individuals in the same family. This situation has arisen due to the transitional arrangements put in place when the drug payment scheme was introduced on 1 July 1999. Under these arrangements patients could continue using their drug cost subsidisation scheme numbers pending the issue of drug payment scheme swipe cards. The introduction of the necessary information technology to facilitate the sole use of drug payment scheme numbers will considerably reduce queries in this regard. In the meantime queries from community pharmacists to the General Medical Services (Payments) Board are being dealt with as speedily as possible.