CONTROVERSIAL plans from the Conservatives to bring back NHS prescription charges in Scotland could force vulnerable patients to go without medicines they need for their conditions, health campaigners have warned.

Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson has set out plans to reintroduce charges of about £8 for prescribed medicines, although although people on low incomes, students, pensioners, patients with long-term conditions and pregnant women would not have to pay.

However, figures from the Scotland Patients’ Association and Arthritis Care Scotland hit out at the Tory election pledge as “regressive” and said that any charging regime could deter people from picking up medicines prescribed to them by their GP.

They dismissed suggestions from the Tories that bringing back charges would deliver savings that could be ploughed into other public services, saying that a change in the system would be costly and overly bureaucratic.

Both groups were involved in campaigning for the abolition of prescription charges before they were finally phased out by the SNP in 2011, in what was one of the flagship policies of Alex Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon during their time as First Minister and health secretary respectively.

Dr Jean Turner, a patron of the Scottish Patients Association, said adopting a similar system to that in England, where prescription charges are £8.40, could put public health at risk.

She said: “The old system was extremely unfair as many people often had to pay a large proportion of their income simply to get the treatment they needed and if they had to get several items for example.

“Ruth Davidson said that people with serious conditions would be exempt, but the old system did not make any accommodations towards people like that and my fear is we’d have the same again. There’s also a real issue about how much it would cost to police a system where people are charged. It could end up saving no money at all or being more expensive than it is at the moment.

“But the big worry is that of compliance, which is whether people would take the medicines they have been prescribed if this goes ahead.

“People would say they could do without medicines if they are hit with charges for a few items, which obviously would then have a damaging effect on their health.

“The policy of charging people for prescriptions doesn’t make sense as it’s wrongly assuming that people carry a lot of money on them.

“It’s just not been thought through as the difficulties with administering charges outweigh any benefits and make it a waste of time.”

Alan McGinley, policy manager of Arthritis Care Scotland, said that the re-introduction of any charges would deter some patients from getting medicines they had been prescribed.

He said: “The current policy came after a hard fight for reform from patients’ organisations, that argued that the old system was meaning a lot of people had to do without.

“Once you introduce charges you are asking people who are often in a very vulnerable position to work out what they can and cannot afford.

“Any charges will make people worried about the implications of the new system and they will start to sift through what they can afford and perhaps go without medicine they have been told they need.

“It would be a very regressive step to go back to the old way and end the system of free prescriptions that allows people to manage their conditions more effectively by getting the medicines they need.”

Tory leader Davidson has previously said it was not fair that people earning “good salaries” should cost the NHS money by getting their prescriptions for free.

The National View: Tory policy is looking rather sickly