BANBURY MP Tony Baldry has demanded assurances from Government that patients will continue to be able to receive prescribed drugs from their local GP.

In the House of Commons, the Conservative MP said patients could lose "the freedom to decide where they would like their prescriptions dispensed" under a shake-up of healthcare.

He accused the Pharmacy White Paper of seeking to give pharmacies a "monopoly" on dispensing at the expense of general practitioners - including in his own village of Bloxham, where a pharmacy chain has applied to open a chemist shop.