I am delighted the Minister of State is here to take this debate as he will know, being in general practice like me, that if one writes a prescription, there is a very good chance that one's instructions will be reinforced when the patient gets to the pharmacy. We have had a very good network of community pharmacies all over the country where individual attention was given to patients, which was extraordinarily important. They were frequently advised on health matters which was important in freeing our accident and emergency departments and general practitioners of unnecessary visits. The Minister of State will understand the value of these pharmacies.
There have been problems regarding the regulations introduced in 1996 but the road the Minister has taken, bringing in total deregulation, has been unwise. The Minister set up a committee last September to look at deregulation of pharmacies, as we have had ridiculous incidents where, because of the ruling that starting a new pharmacy could be considered a threat to existing pharmacies, such pharmacies could not be opened in neighbouring towns. That was not good.
However, the Minister pre-empted the findings of his own group by bringing in deregulation of the retail pharmacy business on 31 January this year. Unofficial statements from officials in the Minister's Department and a report in The Sunday Tribune following that announcement suggest that even they were anxious about this. The Minister said he had to bring in deregulation because it was ultra vires since 1998 and that he had to act. However, it would have been better if he had waited to discuss this with the committee. The Deloitte & Touche report stated that products supplied by pharmacies seemed good value for money. I realise the price of pharmaceutical products is dearer in some of our pharmacies here than in other EU countries. There might have been a better way of dealing with the situation, such as bringing in a prix fixée such as exists in France and Italy. We cannot just look at the price of individual pharmaceutical products.
This country has one of the lowest rates of consumption of medicines in the European Union. That is largely because pharmacists do not press people into getting extra pharmaceutical products. The same may not happen if pharmacies are based in supermarkets where the individual pharmacist may not have the same feeling for the community.
We also have a very low rate of drug reactions and admissions to hospital due to poor compliance in taking pharmaceutical products. This is very important and I do not think it has been taken into account. Good advice is needed in this area and patients get it from existing pharmacies. During the winter, when there has been such a crisis in terms of people on trolleys in accident and emergency departments, a colleague of mine contacted me, asking if anyone had taken any account of the number of people who have to be kept in hospital due to reactions of an adverse nature to pharmaceutical products. I had not thought of it at all, but he felt that a reasonable percentage of bed days in hospital were due to such reactions. If we adopt a less personalised system, more of these beds may be taken up.
Pharmacists, as I am sure Members saw, were frightened that the Minister's actions would favour foreign companies and chains at the expense of independent local pharmacies. I do not know how this point was reached. I note that Gehe, the German pharmaceutical retailers, have pulled out of buying the Unicare chain. What happened does not seem to have satisfied anyone. I ask the Minister of State to explain why he believes this is the right way forward.
