What have they got against rural folks?

It's hard for people in the country. They have lost their local shop and post office, their main hospital will become very remote and now we learn that they are likely to lose the dispensing services of their local doctor.

Currently about 1,500 rural GPs offer dispensing services, and so save many patients long and polluting car journeys to the nearest supermarket or city chemist. The NHS has announced that from next Wednesday costs allowed to doctors to cover the costs of dispensing, - not the drugs themselves, will be reduced from £2.14 to £1.95.

The reduction seems small, but could cause a drop in income of as much as £850 per month for each dispensing doctor. The doctors are already suggesting that they will have to make savings in other services to carry this cost.

If doctors make an arrangement with a distant pharmacy, perhaps on line, to dispense those prescriptions so requested, to enable one car owner to fetch all ( if this is legally possible), then patients may not suffer unduly if local dispensing services are lost. If, however, patients have to fetch their prescriptions individually, then costs will obviously rise significantly.