Prescription fees to fall from April
PRESCRIPTION charges will fall from next April under plans unveiled by the SNP Government yesterday, writes Eddie Barnes.
Health Secretary Nicola Sturgeon has already pledged that the charge of 6.85 will be scrapped by the next Scottish election in 2011.
Yesterday she vowed that the charge would gradually be brought down, the first reduction coming next year.
Aides said yesterday they could not say exactly by how much it would be cut, but promised it would be a "substantial" reduction.
Ministers are believed to still be in negotiations with their civil servants over exactly how much of a cut can be afforded this year, with budgets across the whole government already stretched.
As if to steal Labour's clothes on the NHS, Sturgeon invoked the memory of Aneurin Bevan, the Labour minister who created it.
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Monday 20 February 2012
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