Published: 26/08/2004, Volume II4, No. 5920 Page 22
Being departmental duty minister in August can sometimes be great fun ('real power at last') and sometimes be miserable.When I crossed paths with health minister Rosie Winterton at the Department of Health midmonth it seemed to be a little of both, thanks to the Office of Fair Trading.
The what? Yes, indeed, the OFT.
Why so? Because the DoH chose to act on the advice of OFT reports twice in the same week - up to a point anyway.
Ms Winterton was what the US writer Tom Wolfe long ago called the 'flack-catcher' - the harried public official who feels the heat of public displeasure.
In this instance the displeasure did not extend to the dental profession and its customers.On the back of OFT recommendations that patients need more information about dental fees and public/private options (as I recently complained in this space), ministers are consulting on tighter regulation of the profession - more information and faster remedial procedures.
They seem to have the General Dental Council on their side.
They also plan to require dentists to have indemnity insurance if things go wrong, instead of mere discretionary insurance if their defence body agrees to back them.
'This leaves dentists potentially vulnerable to financial ruin, ' one dentist tells me, so it is a good change.
I wish I could report a similar post-consultation consensus on the OFT's report on pharmacies.
But as you may have seen from the newspapers, ministers' attempts to square the conflicting demands of community chemists and the big supermarket chains had the Daily Mail predicting doom for the little guys and the Financial Times protesting on behalf the the big battalions.
When I spoke to Ms Winterton (on her way to a dental photo opportunity in Lincoln) she insisted: 'The community pharmacists are not unhappy about this.'
After all, the department has rejected the OFT's call for complete deregulation and provided safeguards: 'We have got to modernise the system, 'A pharmacist in Leicester had told her encouragingly.
By safeguards, the minister means that fast-track licenses will be given to mail order and online-only pharmacists as well as those in one-stop primary care centres, those willing to open more than 100 hours a week (That is over 10 hours a day! ), or those set up in huge out-of-town shopping centres, a Meadowhall or Bluewater.
For other applications, the 1987 (Thatcher era) power of local authorities to grant licenses remains. OFT chair John Vickers was quick to protest that this compromise is a 'missed opportunity' which impedes competition, reduces benefits to customers and damages ministers'wish to enhance the role of pharmacists.
Mrs Thatcher taught us not to dismiss such arguments, though her 1987 rules suggest that even she realised that rampant competition must be regulated.
Last week's partial deregulation has left both sides nervous.
Community dispensers will ask: 'Is it just the first step to total deregulation, letting Tesco and Boots put us all out of business?'
Prescription business adds trade for big grocers; it is a booming segment of the market.
And that is what worries me. I do not know where Mr Vickers lives, but in my small corner of London the big supermarkets have been behaving like vacuum cleaners towards their local retail 'rivals' for years.
I first noticed it when my newsagent, the only one who home-delivers, said that Sainsbury's was trying to pinch his Lottery trade. Sure enough, over the years our Sainsbury's, the big local player, has set up a flower business, a newsagent, even a coffee shop (a Starbucks franchise, natch), and an everlarger liquor section. Oh yes, and a Sainsbury's Local too.
No pharmacist, I think, but There is a big Boots nearby.
Playground bullies see each other coming, do not they?
It is all made me increasingly hostile to the big supermarkets.
They kill small businesses, they establish monopolies, underpay suppliers, over-charge customers and the food they sell is full of sugar and salt.
I am going off them fast and wish health secretary John Reid's ministers would take a tougher line, even though they all admire fellow minister Lord Sainsbury.
We will never get more golds at the Olympics until we make all our children take more exercise and eat a better diet. But as with the press lords, New Labour is a bit feeble towards the food lords.
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