Relationship between increasing prescription charges and consumption in groups not exempt from charges.

The further increases in National Health Service (NHS) patient charges introduced on 1 April 1985 represent a continuation of the Government's policy of requiring all except priority groups to pay an increasing proportion of the cost of their own treatment. Reductions in the use of the services on which charges are imposed would be incompatible with the stated objectives of the NHS. An analysis of the published data on NHS prescription dispensation shows that this policy has been associated with a considerable reduction in the per capita consumption of prescribed drugs in non-priority groups.