'Extortionate' prices add £260m to NHS drug bill

[SmallBlueThing]

No news to us, but it's on the front page of The Times, 3rd June 2016.

suttonnick.tumblr.com/image...

[SmallBlueThing]

Spot the spelling mistake in the article... (same one made by my consultant's secretary).

[Josiesmum]

The tragic and scandalous thing about all this is that sick patients are being denied the (cheap) drugs they need because of the greed of a few people lining their own pockets. How can this be allowed to happen?

[determined56]

One of my drug suppliers has changed from costing pence to another company who will have the monopoly to costing pounds??!!

The old company will not be supplying?

Can't understand it.time as patients got together to stop these drug supplying monopolies........

Do you agree?

Hugs to all

By the way the new supply is in a foil pack I have to break in half a tiny tablet & store in my old tablet bottle !

[Glynisrose]

Its the pharmaceutical companies that set prices and make deals with the NHS not us.

[Treepie]

Our lazy and incompetent NHS medicines controllers/ purchasers and successive ineffectual Governments allow it to happen. Maybe they will read and act but unlikely.

Time for direct action?

[Josiesmum in reply to Treepie]

I think people here are already taking direct action by self medicating with drugs bought over the internet where CCGs/GPs are refusing to prescribe on cost grounds, it's a really worrying state of affairs.

[Treepie in reply to Josiesmum]

Yes ,but not all drugs are available without prescriptions and of course it leads to great dangers of counterfeits .

[Josiesmum in reply to Treepie]

Exactly, you don't really know what you're buying, that's why this is so worrying.

[Airmed in reply to Josiesmum]

I hope these people can sleep at night. I don't blame people for self medicating but I think we should still all be lobbying our MPs to do something about this scandalous situation. To licence a product in the UK is not difficult or rocket science especially a branded one that may have held a licence or which is sold off as a generic. The NHS personnel involved in this should be held accountable or better still sacked. There always seems to be a "loophole" that people take advantage of. Is this too simple; why after the first time the NHS is ripped off through this loophole is it not closed by emergency legislation simples. People blame big pharma companies but after all they are a business and will try and get the best price for their product. It's up to The NHS to employ people who are able to negotiate and get A fair price for NHS patients. It should be illegal for any pharmaceutical company to offer any incentives to the NHS to use their products too. Rant over.

[Rapunzel in reply to Airmed]

I do hope that these people can't sleep at night, Airmed . Much as I have a deep distaste for those newspapers indulging in 'celeb shaming' at every opportunity, this piece of journalism shows that the press needs a deal of freedom to follow up and publish such disgraceful behaviour. Let us hope that these 'lauded rags to riches Asian businessmen' are hoist on their own petard and now black balled at the clearly glittering occasions (photograph) they are accustomed to attending. These people and others like them, have no honour whatsoever and don't deserve a wink of sleep.

As galling is the fact that my taxes help to pay the Janus-faced mandarins who have allowed such 'loopholes' to continue in NHS pricing 'controls'. The fact of the matter could very well be that without their evident slumber on the job, perhaps more cutting edge drugs would be allowable and affordable via not very NICE.

Altogether appalling.

[Airmed in reply to Rapunzel]

Tongue in cheek Rapunzal. I couldn't write on this forum what I would like to happen to these avaricious #%#%#%**

[Rapunzel in reply to Airmed]

But really that wouldn't be equitable...don't mete out special treatment to these people particularly. There are thousands of these parasites, not just in medicine. We need a list, no ?

Government procurement is an absolute joke.

[Chubby42]

There are probably people along the supply chain that are all on kick backs from these companies.

[Treepie]

Funny how the BBC news site has pixellated out the picture of the rag to riches Essex based Asians who own one of these rapacious companies.

[jimh111]

Thanks for this. I reported this to the MHRA two weeks ago. I have also seen my MP about it a few months back. I have sent both a chase up e-mail to see if they will pick up on it.

[Airmed]

Hi, that is why we must all take a stand and lobby our MPs, the press etc and make people in the NHS accountable for their actions. They should not be able to remove drugs at a brush stroke because they are to idle to do their job. Peoples lives are at stake here. T3 for example costs pennies to manufacture is licenced in the UK so why doesnt the NHS tell Mercury Pharma that unless they reduce the price we will buy off Aventis. In fact I'm just going to phone Aventis and ask them why they are not selling in the UK as there is an obvious market. If I have to self medicate I will but it goes against all my training as I would never advocate buying prescription medication off the internet.

[Butterfly65]

Sadly we live in a culture of greed & the reason this has been allowed to happen or ignored is because the powers that be have let it happen, maybe it's on their agenda to see the Nhs collapse & privatisation take over. Many of these large companies sponsor political parties so turning a blind eye is second nature. In my opinion most politicians are nothing more than educated legal Gangsters with the law on their side.

[sweetsusie]

Greedy creeps....

[Skeeter1956]

Sadly this is a consequence of having Thatcher's children running the country .They will not be content until the NHS as we know it is a distant memory.

Cheers Skeeter

[crabapple]

There's a petition on 38 Degrees.

speakout.38degrees.org.uk/c...

I've also put this on the other two threads on this subject.

[Airmed in reply to crabapple]

Of course I've signed it. However, am very concerned it takes a petition to get this loophole closed. In industry, once a problem like this is identified the lawyers would be working through the night to ensure this loophole was closed and legislation airtight. Am going to ask Jeremy Hunt why this is not the case when the NHS is leaking like a sieve. There needs to be an investigation into this matter never mind a petition.

[ren41 in reply to crabapple]

I've signed this too; as someone else has mentioned Liothyronine is one of the drugs which is affected and now being labelled as of little or no value. My GP is sympathetic but my new endo, pretty junior, only believes in thyroxine and has little interest beyond lab results. He decided to drop my T3 but failed to increase thyroxine to compensate, with the results one might expect.

ren

[Zephyrbear]

I think that when it comes to T3 being labelled as of little value or no value, a lot of the blame for that assessment has to go to the British Thyroid Association/Foundation who have resisted all evidence of the actual efficacy of this medicine with the sort of determination only ever seen in a recalcitrant child... It is THEY who need to be told to look and listen to the evidence that has been made abundantly clear in so many places from both patients and doctors such as Dr John Lowe, who rebutted their stupidity a long time ago instead of ignoring it as they have done since it was published. THEY need to be forced to change their attitude...

[SmallBlueThing]

A former press officer with the National Patient Safety Agency and the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency says that the announcement of the competition watchdog's involvement is to give the firms time to find reasons for costs that the papers will swallow.

Will they swallow the difference in price of European T3?