The Community Pharmacy Section of the International Pharmaceutical Federation (FIP) set up a Working Group in 1993 to examine the issue of dispensing by doctors, and to identify ways of convincing governments and ‘third-party payers’ of the value of a full pharmaceutical service. Mr Stephen Axon, Secretary of the Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee, from Aylesbury, UK, presented the Working Group's findings at the 55th World Congress of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences [Stockholm, Sweden; August 1995].