I read today that the health authority for Bucks and Oxford is seriously considering ending the supply of GF food on prescription. There was an article on the CUK site.
Apparently the food on prscription is costing £350,000 per year to the health authority, who say it isn't fair to provide food on prescription for Coeliacs but not for other people with different eating disorders.
Besides, they say, GF food is easily obtainable from supermarkets.
The ban has been given a one month leave of execution whilst CUK prepares its case for defence, whose main arguments are that not everyone has access to supermarkets and GF food is still much more expensive than non-GF.
If this goes through I suspect it will set a precedent and others will follow.
I reckon without GF food on prescription the manufacturers will either go out of business or have to drop their prices. They certainly won't be able to afford to give truckloads of free samples away at coeliac meetings and food fairs.
Hi Phil, here's a link to the article in the Oxford Mail:
oxfordmail.co.uk/news/94764...
What I do not understand is why the prescription co's charge the NHS so much and why the high delivery charges. When the cuts in the SE started a coeliac in Germany posted details of Semper wheat starch made by Juvela's parent company with identical ingredients and German coeliac can buy this codex wheat for 2Euro's and 40c which depending on the exchange rate is between £1.90 and £1.98 and they can buy it over the counter. And the NHS is charged over £6.50 for 500g of Juvela wheat starch + delivery. The fresh bread carries an even bigger premium for delivery the chemist also charges a £1.00 handling fee for each prescription (not each item)
I know that I don't get food on prescription but I do feel for coeliac who are affected by these cuts as I know that they must feel threatened so I am sorry folks.
Just did the maths in the article... £350,000 a year for 6,000 coeliacs. That's a whole £58 per person per year.
I had to check that a few times. Really? £58 per person per year is too much?