asked the Minister for Health if she has any plans to improve the scheme for the refund of the cost of medicines in order to reimburse much more quickly those people who utilise the scheme at present.

I am aware that delays can be experienced in obtaining refunds of the cost of prescribed drugs and appliances. Health boards have been asked to make arrangements to minimise delays in the payment of refunds of the cost of very expensive drugs. Delays could also be minimised if claims for refunds were submitted as early as possible following the month in respect of which a claim is made.

Are there any plans to streamline the system having regard to the situation in which delays are becoming even more lengthy and are in many cases causing grave hardship to those concerned?

In 1980 more than 415,000 claims for refunds were made at a cost of more than £7 million. The average number of claims per month was 34,600 while the average delay in payment of refunds from the date of application was five-and-a-half weeks. It has been suggested that the hardship which can be caused by delays in payments of refunds could be eliminated if patients had to pay only a limited amount to pharmacists in respect of any one prescription, the balance being claimed by the pharmacists from the health boards. While this happens on an individual basis at present, pharmacists are unlikely to accept such a generalised procedure since it would entail extending substantial credit to health boards. If pharmacists were to be compensated for delays in payment in order to have their acceptance for this procedure the cost of the scheme would increase substantially.

Have there been discussions with the pharmacists for the purpose of ascertaining what type of scheme would be acceptable to them?

There have been some discussions with the pharmacists in this area and the health boards are asked to deal with expensive drug refunds as quickly as possible.

What is the order of the delay at the moment? The Minister has referred to the historic delays of five-and-a-half weeks on average but there is the feeling that this period has increased recently. This situation is particularly severe having regard to the £500,000 which, as we learned yesterday, is being taken from this area in the latter part of this year. This means that costs will be higher for the individual. What period of delay is expected to occur in the last quarter of this year?

I do not have the information for the last quarter of this year but I can tell the Deputy that the number of participants in the scheme has increased considerably. My information is that the five-and-a-half weeks delay is the average delay.