MP Slams Funding Decision To Cut Services From Local Chemist
Birmingham MP, Roger Godsiff, condemned as ‘outrageous’ the funding threat to a local chemist which provides a hugely popular ‘minor ailments service’ in his constituency.
The funding threat to Fakir Chemist in Church Rd comes about because the chemist now comes under the South Birmingham PCT and not the Heart of Birmingham PCT who have funded it in the past.
Mr Godsiff said: ‘Government policy is to try and take the pressure off hard-pressed GP’s by allowing chemists to provide a ‘minor ailments service’. The service provided by Fakir Chemist fits exactly into what the Government intended and it has been very successful and is greatly appreciated by local residents’.
He went on to say: ‘The reason that there is a threat to this service is not because there have been any complaints about the quality of the service provided by this chemist but purely and simply because they have become a victim of ‘bureaucracy’ and some arbitrary drawing of new boundary lines’.
‘I have written to the Chief Executives of both the PCT’s involved making it clear that this pharmacy must retain the facility of providing this ‘minor ailments service’ being funded either by the South Birmingham PCT or on a joint basis with the Heart of Birmingham PCT’.
Mr Godsiff concluded: ‘This pharmacy has more than met it’s contractual obligations, has itself invested heavily in providing this service and I can see absolutely no justification in ending it and quite simply I am not prepared to accept that my constituents should be denied this most valuable facility’
