Fiona McCarthy Workers Party Representative has criticised the Labour Government caving into pressure from the Trump Administration on Drug Prices.
Ms McCarthy said for months Trump has been demanding price increases for drugs sold to the National Health Service in order to get lower priced drugs for Americans and the approach has been anything but subtle. Threatening Tariffs on imports from Britain to the USA which the American people would have to pay not the exporter. The American Ambassador to Britain in a speech in Northern Ireland recently said if drug prices were not increased they were prepared to remove American pharmaceutical companies out of Ireland and Britain this is purely and simply political blackmail.
Ms McCarthy said this deal is bad for the NHS and those who rely on it for treatment. Under this new deal the UK will increase the price threshold, at which it deems new treatments to be too expensive, by 25%. The UK will also increase the overall amount the NHS spends on medicines with a target to increase that spending from 0.3% to 0.6 of GDP over the next ten years not to provide better drug treatment for patients but to please the Trump Administration. Who have only agreed not to put tariffs on drugs that are exported from Britain for three years.
Ms McCarthy finished by saying the Nutffield Trust think tank said the agreement could lead to an extra £3 billion being spend on drugs, in the NHS which was “bad news” given how stretched budgets were.