Watchdog and drug charges

[Gcart]

On the programme last night they did one on vets costs showing how high they are when the same drugs can be bought on line for very much less.

Without going into the pros and cons here maybe we could appeal to that programme to expose how much the NHS is being ripped off by the pharmaceuticals.

I am sure there are many examples of this problem. We know all about liothyronine!

My thoughts would be just sticking to the high prices being charged rather than the effect on any particular patients. I am very cynical and think if people realise where tax payers money is going it would have more effect than presenting someone (patient) caught up in this scandal .

Lack of compassion is rife to fellow humans. If local giving is about animals the money pot/food overflowing . So I thought the fat cat evidence would hit home more.

Any thought s I love animals by the way 🙂

[Angel_of_the_North]

I don't think the BBC like attacks on the NHS of any sort.

[Gcart in reply to Angel_of_the_North]

You have a point, worth a try ?

Iam happy to contact them in the first place .

[Angel_of_the_North in reply to Gcart]

I meant that saying that their procurement dept was rubbish and was allowing NHS to be ripped off would be seen as an attack on NHS policy. But you could try.

[MaisieGray]

I didn't watch the programme so don't know what we're the points being made, but surely anything being bought on line is without the professional safeguards and business overheads that having it prescribed and overseen by a vet confers - and therefore will have greater cost? Then it becomes an issue of what's a valid mark up rather than that there is a mark up at all. As for this being a country or planet of animal lovers, nothing could be further from the truth in reality, if the amount of abuse and cruelty perpetrated against animals is anything to go by. However, the other side of the coin is that if you look at almost any well written petition, be it to address a human, animal, conservation or other need, the numbers signing often increase exponentially; but in the case of each petition about thyroid issues, including the current one about T3, (and despite the large numbers of presumably self-interested thyroid patients) the petitions drag along with relatively few signing. The current one has been around for about a year I think, yet only has about 40,000 signatures - I saw a petition a few weeks ago which most definitely was a human not an animal one, which garnered 100,000 signatures in the first 24 hrs. So if we won't help ourselves who should?

I also do not believe the NHS "is being ripped off" by anyone - being ripped off would be every single manufacturer of T3 world-wide, mutually agreeing to charge an excessive amount so that no purchasing authority or individual had a choice in the matter. But that is not the situation with T3. There is the option to buy far cheaper but the NHS has chosen not to, and has blanked all urging to do so. That there is large scale stupidity, idleness and who knows what in evidence amongst those responsible for purchasing and controlling NHS supplies, is very well known - look at the case of the NHS happily paying something like £300 for a jar of Vaseline costing a couple of pounds in any shop, for instance. Then look at the licensing of the more recent T3 makes, such as Teva and Morningside which surprise surprise, came online at virtually the identical cost as Concordia's product even though, at that point, Concordia's exorbitant pricing was not only known about but being investigated. And at the same time that it was already very well known that similar tablets cost tuppence 'appeny almost everywhere else in the world. So why were they granted a license on that basis rather than being told by the NHS to put their tablets somewhere the sun doesn't shine unless and until their pricing was comparable with even say, Thybon Henning at 30€ per 100 tabs? So no, I don't agree that the NHS is being ripped off, I believe it is (or more accurately, the taxpayers and patients are) the victim of its own incompetence, disinterest or wrongdoing - and I'm most definitely not a conspiracy theorist. I'm pretty sure the NHS must be the only near-monopsonist purchaser on the planet which has managed to drive prices up rather than down. That takes some doing.

[Gcart in reply to MaisieGray]

I think It should be highlighted in the media as often as possible. Maybe, just maybe a change could come about. If more people know of the unnecessary overspend on many drug item things could be addressed more firmly and fairly by the powers that be.

[DeeD123 in reply to MaisieGray]

Well said