MEDICAL CARD HOLDERS will have to pay to avail of a new pharmacy prescription service that is to be rolled out by the end of the year. 

The service, which will enable pharmacists to prescribe for eight common conditions including thrush, cold sores, and vulvovaginal thrush, was to be up and running by the start of this year, but it has been delayed, with the Minister for Health now saying that it will be in place by the end of 2025. 

No state funding has been set aside to enable those who hold a medical card to be covered when it comes to availing of the new service; which is in part being developed as a means to relieve pressure on GPs. 

A spokesperson for the Department of Health told The Journal that in the context of “sustainable reform” not all aspects of the new service will be State funded directly, rather it will empower pharmacists to “seize opportunities” and diversify “business models”. 

“Medical card holders currently have access to consultations with their GPs without charges; if a medicine is prescribed to them following that consultation, they can receive the medicine from a pharmacist upon payment of the statutory prescription charge,” the spokesperson added. 

They added that the common conditions service will “increase capacity across primary care”. 

‘Effectively blocked’

Sinn Féin’s spokesperson on health TD David Cullinane told The Journal that the lack of state funding for the service means that medical card holders are effectively blocked from availing of it, meaning that it will have a limited impact when it comes to taking pressure off local GPs. 

“They started looking at bringing this in in 2023, when Stephen Donnelly was the Health Minister he said it would be up and running by now, and despite numerous talking groups and sub committees we’re now being told it will be the end of the year. 

“Of course medical card holders should be able to get the consultations with pharmacists through their medical card, it’s ridiculous to think that they wouldn’t,” he added. 

The Expert Taskforce to support the expansion of the role of pharmacy was set up in October of 2023.

Nearly a year later it produced a report which recommended that pharmacists should be able to prescribe for eight common conditions, including: Allergic rhinitis, cold sores, conjunctivitis, impetigo, oral thrush, shingles, uncomplicated UTIs and vulvovaginal thrush.

At the time Stephen Donnelly said pharmacies would have these powers and would be prescribing the medications by early this year. 

At the time, Tom Murray, the President of the Irish Pharmacies Union, warned that it wasn’t acceptable for the Department of Health to “layer on new schemes” to an already “underfunded and resourced group of healthcare professionals”. 

Currently, an Implementary Oversight group made up of representatives from the Department of Health, the Health Service Executive, the IPU, and the HPRA are working on the necessary protocols, secondary legislation and training needed to see the service up and running.