Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 2:34 pm on 13 June 2017.
Leader of the house, may I ask for a statement from the Cabinet Secretary for health on free prescriptions in Wales and medicine cost management in the NHS in Wales also? The cost of free prescriptions was £593 million in 2015. However, the cost of prescribing some drugs is far higher than the price at which they can be obtained across the counter in supermarkets. The cost to the NHS in Wales for prescribing paracetamol, for example, was over £5 million last year. While I recognise that the Welsh Government is not going to change its policy on free prescriptions, could I ask the Cabinet Secretary for health to look at ways that readily available treatments, such as paracetamol, can be issued without prescription, thereby reducing the cost to the NHS, and releasing much-needed funds for other NHS services?
And there is another area, which is every one adult in four is obese in Wales, and almost 60 per cent are overweight, according to the Welsh health survey of 2015. And I think that itself takes adulthood into diabetes, which was costing a surgery, or a doctor, £5 per month, per medicine, only five years ago. Now, at the moment, the cost is well over £35 a month. And the way the numbers are increasing in obesity and diabetes, I think we are heading for a big tsunami of financial management lack in the NHS in Wales, unless we do something about it. Thank you.