NRAS has been a member of the Prescriptions Charges Coalition for many years and are urging Government to at the bare minimum freeze charges until the exemption list of long term conditions is reviewed. In the UK it is only in England that people with many long term conditions like RA pay for their over the counter prescriptions!
Add your name to the open letter 👉 campaign.parkinsons.org.uk/...
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before I was 60 , I just paid the annual prescription charge , it was around £100 then, I thought that was pretty good considering the cost of drugs and how poor a state the NHS was in and still is , in-fact a lot worse now.
Just done the maths , £111 a year for a 12 month prescription tkt , that’s £2.13 a week . If your on biologics or some other expensive meds , bite their hand off,
With the financial position Governments puts nhs GPs in…forcing them to only buy from certain licensed outlets ….it would surely be better if everybody plus/minus 60 paid something towards prescriptions on a monthly basis. …like everybody having to get that season ticket!
Of course it wouldn’t be popular….but there must be a lot of sick people who can’t afford multiple prescription drugs every month …& just go without…..ending up in hospital…& costing the nhs more in the end?
Plus it can’t be denied we are going to have to bite the bullet very soon & start paying the going rate for medical attention of all kinds,
I have 60+ friends who still get prescribed free paracetamol on the nhs…when they can well afford what it costs in supermarkets…plus other OTC available drugs people get for free. If these prescribed tablets are having to be bought from these licensed sources……that must waste thousands? You only have to look in some places where paracetamol is really expensive.
The grey suits who run the nhs need to start thinking outside the box…or replaced by people who can
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I've had free prescriptions ever since I was 40. I did always think it was odd for me to get everything free just because I was diagnosed with a thyroid condition.
Have to say, I feel lucky as I've built up a fair list of repeats, especially with my eye issues, but I always buy paracetamol etc over the counter. I actually thought there was a list of basic stuff like that you could no longer get on prescription?
Paracetamol is 39 pence for a pack of 16 in Tesco, that works out at 5 p for the standard 2 tablet dose. I think GPs should also take a stand and refuse to sign prescriptions for people who are mobile and could easily go to the shops / pharmacy, explaining why they won't sign.
(It costs nearly £10 to dispense each medication on a prescription).
But you should see how some patients react if told they can.’t have what they feel is their “right”…..& it’s usually the ones who can afford to pay.
Therefore it’s up to NHS managers to stand firm and issue a public list of what you cannot get for free on your prescription…& GPs could display that list in their waiting rooms,
There was a list published, and I believe paracetamol was on it, but obviously that hasn’t been adhered to.
But as I keep banging on….if we want a health service like they have in the rest of Europe we have to pay for it…but doctors have to be willing to adapt as well as patients,…. & we have all seen the antics doctors have been getting up to recently ….so we shall just have to wait and see won’t we?
I'm absolutely with you on, we get what we pay for, and we don't pay nearly enough for a well financed health care system.
I don,t understand why for ,xx years doctors allowed their union to settle for below par pay increments…that lead to the present impasse.
The point of a trade union is the members agree what they want, ,& their union reps fight for it. So where did it all go so wrong? How/Why did the BMJ fail to do that for so long..meaning doctors now are unwilling to listen to suggestions of a new system…& patients are suffering?
The drugs that are delivered to your door from the companies that receive your prescriptions via the hospital are free, I have enbrel and also for a few years mtx injections delivered to my door every two months. When I took mtx tablet form I had to pay for the prescriptions, I was then switched to injections and no prescription charge.
That’s interesting that’s the tabs are charged and not the injections , I have always been on injections so never came across it 👍
I know, weird isn't it? If you have to go to the chemist to get your mtx tablets you pay, yet injections delivered to your door are free. I did once though have a prescription done by my consultant at my hospital (I was having my dose changed) and had to go to the hospital pharmacy to get them. I did at the time have a pre payment card for my other meds and if I hadn't of had it I would of had to pay for the prescription.
Yes I wonder how much these delivery companies are paid to deliver these drugs another waste of nhs money
They do deliver drugs that need to be kept between 2-8 degrees. They arrive in vans with some sort of refrigeration onboard, handed over to the patient who then puts them straight into the fridge.
Done.
But then you've got to get them home keeping them in refrigeration temperature. Once these drugs have gone above 8 degrees you can't put them in the fridge. Some people might not have the means to keep the drugs cold enough for the journey home. I understand what you mean but it starts to get complicated. Could end up with drugs being spoilt and unusable, then costing more money to replace.
all done and passed on
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