This may affect T3 in Wales

[serenfach]

bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-393...

The way decisions are made on prescribing medicines not deemed cost-effective will be simpler in future, according to the health secretary.

Health boards will decide whether or not to pay for a drug or treatment based on the "likely medical benefits" from September.

Previously, patients had to demonstrate they were "exceptional" cases.

It believes key decision-making criteria should be what the clinical benefits of medicines are and whether the treatment offers reasonable value for money.

Now we all know the benefits of T3 to those who need it, and we know the drug companies are charging whatever they like, so this may be a way of those of us who need T3 to argue for it? Of course for the Health Board paying the increased cost it is not value for money. How about tackling the obscene charges instead?

[Clutter]

If anyone taking T3 has their prescription withdrawn they should appeal using the BTA statement recently published british-thyroid-association...

[shaws]

Definitely - you are correct - unnecessarily exhorbitant charges to the NHS.

[helvella Administrator]

Serenfach,

The story you reported in your post struck a chord with me.

One of the reasons is that I have been trying to understand how the four constituent country health services actually manage medicine procurement. Do they follow one process and all pay the same? Or could each do whatever they want entirely separately? I have not been able to see how the whole process is supposed to work, let alone how it works in practice.

That is, could the Welsh health boards make it easy for patients to receive other manufacturers’ products? Maybe Sanofi (Henning) Thybon and/or Sanofi Cynomel. Maybe they could even obtain a Product Licence? Could they even decide to stop allowing Mercury Pharma liothyronine being prescribed at all on the grounds of overcharging?

My train of thought was that trying to get the English system changed to allow substitution on the grounds of price might be an awful lot more difficult than doing so in one of the three smaller constituent countries.

Is it worth writing to Vaughan Gething?

[Zephyrbear]

'...medicines would still have to "deliver reasonable value."' Reasonable value for whom? My T3 has given me my life back... Taking it away from me because some bean counter says it's too expensive would return me to the life of a fat, immobile fog-brained zombie and would be utterly unreasonable to me! Why does nobody do anything meaningful to these pharmaceutical companies that are being allowed to continue taking the p*ss, even though there are much cheaper sources available? Fining them a couple of hours worth of profit clearly isn't working and the NHS need to go shopping! If they don't know where to start, there are plenty of us here who know exactly the right direction where to point them! All they have to do is ask!!!

[serenfach]

I agree - the fact that without certain drugs, some of us are unable to work or live seems to be beside the point!