Prescribing and government expense

September 29, 2010

I was honoured again this year to be invited by the Italian College of Family Doctors who held once again, in Caserta, a conference on medico-legal issues. I was asked to invite two colleagues from the UK and Holland. We heatedly discussed the gatekeeper role in the prescription of medicines in the respective countries. Now with the new proposal on the primary health care reform in the hands of cabinet, and what with some debates in the past on whether doctors receive compensation for prescribing, this issue should be addressed again. I wish to look at the situation in the UK and that in Italy, two contrasting states, where doctors are very upset about the moral position they are put in, especially because they are policed by the guardia di finanza, income tax police, as it were. (The Malta Independent)