The Dispensing Doctors' Association is an organisation for rural
general practitioner
A general practitioner (GP) is a doctor who is a Consultant (medicine), consultant in general practice.
GPs have distinct expertise and experience in providing whole person medical care, whilst managing the complexity, uncertainty and risk ass ...
s in the United Kingdom, based in
Kirkbymoorside
Kirkbymoorside () is a market town and civil parish in North Yorkshire, England. It is north of York; midway between Pickering and Helmsley, and on the edge of the North York Moors National Park. The parish had a population of 3,040 in the 20 ...
.
It was first established in 1984, following the publication of
Cecil Clothier
Sir Cecil Montacute "Spike" Clothier KCB QC (28 August 1919 – 8 May 2010) was a lawyer who served as a Judge of Appeal on the Isle of Man, and then as Parliamentary Commissioner for Administration and Health Service Commissioner for Engla ...
's Report on dispensing arrangements in rural areas in December 1977 and the publication of the NHS (General Medical and Pharmaceutical Services) Amendment Regulations 1983, SI 1983/313. In 2022 Dr Richard West, a GP partner in Suffolk was chair of the association.
It campaigns to protect the right of GPs to dispense prescriptions in rural areas. There are about 6600 doctors in 1,290 dispensing practices affected with about three million patients who qualify as being more than a mile from a pharmacy. There was a 16% reduction in dispensing practices in Scotland from 2011 to 2013. The association points out that revenue that practices receive from providing dispensing services subsidise the provision of general medical services in rural areas.
The Association recommended in 2014 that pharmacists should assume responsibility for patients with hypertension who are prescribed three drugs or fewer and are controlled.
It produced a manifesto for the
2017 General Election calling for protection of rural general practice.
See also
*
Separation of prescribing and dispensing
Separation of prescribing and dispensing, also called dispensing separation, is a practice in medicine and pharmacy in which the physician who provides a medical prescription is independent from the pharmacist who provides the prescription drug.
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References
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Health in Yorkshire
Kirkbymoorside
Medical associations based in the United Kingdom
Organisations based in North Yorkshire