The Western Mail’s
repeated return to the subject of free prescriptions is starting to look less
like news coverage and more like a campaign to re-introduce charges for
medicines. This week’s story highlighted
the high average number of prescriptions per head over a year, claiming that it
raised “fresh questions about the flagship policy”. I’m almost tempted to run a ‘spot the
difference’ competition by comparing their story this week to one a few months
ago. The questions are not so much fresh as regurgitated.
There was something
of a shortage, once again, of critical analysis of what the figures might be
telling us. The
average number of prescriptions per head has also been rising in England,
despite the high – and increasing – charges for prescriptions there. That gives a context in which the increase in
Wales
is not solely down to the fact that medicines are now free – although you
wouldn’t know that from any reading of the Western Mail’s story.
But let us suppose
that at least part of the increase is down to the fact that prescriptions are
free – is that a good thing or a bad thing?
Again context and analysis are everything – and were completely missing
from the paper’s reporting.
It reminds me of a
statement by one of the Welsh police forces a couple of years ago that an
increase in the number of cases of domestic violence was a good result not a
bad one. It made me stop and think; but
the argument was that a greater willingness to report such crime showed that
the force was actually being effective in tackling it, and thus creating a
climate where people no longer felt that it wasn’t worth reporting.
In a similar vein, if an increase
in numbers of prescriptions is because rich people are no longer paying for over
the counter drugs, then it’s easy to see why it might be considered a bad thing.
But if it’s the result of less well-off people
seeking treatment and taking medicines when they would previously not have done so
because they couldn’t afford the medicines, then it’s a good thing – and a
clear sign that the policy is achieving one of its stated aims.
It’s a distinction
of which readers would be left completely unaware, however, from a report which
provided the usual suspects with an opportunity to trot out their usual lines,
led as ever by those persistent opponents of free medicine, the Tories. Their health spokesperson repeats the
customary soundbite about millionaires getting free paracetamol (although he
varies it a bit by adding bonjela – ah the sheer inventiveness of the man!).
Does anyone know of
a single millionaire in Wales
who’s ever gone to the trouble of arranging a doctor’s appointment in order to
get a prescription for free paracetamol?
I don’t – but then I don’t think I know any millionaires either; they’re
not exactly common in Wales
in the first place. It may be a good
soundbite, but it’s a deliberately misleading distraction. They’ll carry on using it though – why wouldn’t
they, when they’re being given a free and uncritical platform on which to
repeat it?
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