Just read this...
theguardian.com/politics/20...
"People over 60 should also start paying for their prescriptions, to help raise more revenue for an underfunded NHS that is under “unsustainable” pressure from rising demand, said Smith."
I wonder how that will pan out!
People over 60 are more likely to be on lots of medication e.g. statins, blood pressure, diuretics, pain killers etc. It will cost some people on just a small pension a huge amount of money that will be totally unaffordable. Lots of people will have to choose between heating and eating, but now they will have to choose between those two and living, if their medications help to keep them alive.
It's my understanding that the 'over 60' free scripts was due to retirement age being 60 for women, and they made it equal for men even though the male retirement age was 65 at the time.
If they move the free script age to co-incide with the current individual retirement age, then it could still be free for pensioners.
Totally...and admin costs will increase!
We don't pay prescription charges in Scotland!
Charging is an inhumane idea.....
The slow creep towards privatising health care.
but now they will have to choose between those two and living, if their medications help to keep them alive.
They just don't get it!
The bean crunchers don't seem interested in the latter otherwise they would also ensure / understand that the people who need T3 ( in large doses) to keep them alive should have it prescribed.
Better go....feel another rant coming on!!!
Hi DippyDame 👋😊
I think before they start slapping prescription costs on the elderly they should review their prescribing regimes in the first instance. They pushed every type of statin at my mum for two years, subjecting her to rashes and aching limbs before finally relenting - when I stepped in and told them to stop the nonsense and accept they didn’t agree with her. The same with warfarin she was bedridden by it, so profound the effect, yet the haematology nurse still thought, contrary to a Sensible GP (yes they are out there) that she should continue with treatment as her blood test results were good . A classic case of treating the blood results rather than the patient. So she came off that. Still rattling like a maraca first thing in the mornings she reached a point where they deemed palliative care was appropriate- taken off ALL meds bar pain relief. She got better…..
She finally passed having had her dying phase extended from what would have been months, treated with compassion and dignity, to years by antibiotics and being pushed through A&E to get her off the GPs desk.
20 years of ill health the last, 6 years of absolute misery, doubly incontinent, unable to move herself, losing her mind to vascular dementia.
The cost of inflicting such suffering I can only imagine and it is happening all over the country. Yes she did want to die in the final stages and I had the heartache of having to refuse to help her as I knew I would have been made an example of……….
That is heartbreaking but sadly a tale repeated all too often around the country.It's tantamount to criminal neglect.
Yes and they say they are underfunded- psychopaths refusing treatment for those who could be helped and expending millions on prolonging suffering for people like my mum. They need to give their head’s a wobble. 😭
I hope you can see I was making the opposite point to what was happening for your Mum. It adds up to the same thing we are talking about but clearly the circumstances are/were entirely different. What was your phrase again? Under- funded psychopaths.
I was going to make pretty much the same reply as yourself. So many people on drugs they don’t need. My m-I-law was on about thirty drugs a day for years. None of them, not one, was in any way a life saving drug. However she lived to 88, happy with her regime of light painkillers (cheaper for the NHS to buy over the counter), laxatives (if only she ate better), light calming meds (Childs measure I was assured by a nurse) and sorry I can’t think of the word just at the moment, antihistamines for a condition she never had …. I could go on. I had to do a spreadsheet for her to remind her when to take them. This was to help stop her being on the phone to the doc every day. She did need help but not drugs. She was so happy. A complete hypochondriac, probably your stereotype on which attitudes to women in particular are based, particularly in medicine. It spoils it for the rest of us and doctors are right there in the middle of it. By the way I copied your advice the other day re: telecon with GP. It worked an absolute treat. I was so ready (although I had no confidence) and got everything I wanted. I was so high after it I had to lie down for a couple of days!
arTisapple 🤗
Agree on all points and delighted you used the telecon to its best advantage. So so much better being sat with all notes to hand ready for a battle if required, telephone in hand, rather than perched on a chair deferentially placed by the side of the big desk. 😂👍
Thank goodness your mum had a wonderful caring daughter that didn't take any nonsense from doctors, who rarely care and just want to prescribe drugs.
What I can never get is why anybody would trust a doctor!
This site has been a life saver for me, so many wise people got me on the road to recovery. Now more than ever we need to learn how to read blood tests and seek out the best advice avoiding the NHS at all costs.
Hi Margo
And morbid as it sounds, make advanced decisions so our wishes (should we not wish to be pumped full of antibiotics for years) are respected. At 53 I’ve made mine with the help of compassion in dying. They can be challenged by family members, but that’s where talking about it in advance is essential. Sometimes family members can’t take their own feelings of loss out of it. Often still quite infantile, not meaning to be selfish. We had a chap and his wife through once who said it was a shame his mum wasn’t still around as she would have loved seeing the great grandchildren running around. His wife looked at him in horror. “But your mother had a severe stroke that left her paralysed and unable to speak and doubly incontinent. You think she would have wanted to live like that?!”. He missed his mum and couldn’t connect with the suffering she would have gone through. Thankfully he had the decision taken out of his hands and his mother passed quickly.
I would like to see the NHS improved. It is a wonderful ‘invention’ but like a lot of good British ideas and institutions it is abused. People just can’t help themselves. As for our Gods (consultants) many of them need to spend some time in the real world. Maybe ill with one of the most disrespected illnesses. Hypothyroidism?
Margo , arTistapple , DippyDame
I would have liked every doctor who extended my mothers life to be subjected to full bed care for at least a month in nappies. Doesn’t matter how compassionate the carers are, making people suffer years like that is inhuman. It was literally pass the parcel- they didn’t want to have the signing of the death certificate on their watch. Tragic…… hence why she got fired into A&E. GPs and care homes they are all at it.
For the most part the elderly who end up in A&E are there to get them “off my desk”. Lancaster A&E is frequently choked. The option of making people comfortable has been removed for people just dying from old age.
Something HAS to change……
Urgent help please: Getting an NHS GP to agree to blood tests for a private endocrinologist
Where can i go for gynae-type issues to avoid NHS GP? Are there any sexual health clinics that will do scans and deal with cysts/fibroids?
Anyone been to the queen elizabeth hospital in birmingham for nhs endo appointment ?- reviews good or bad
47m NHS hospital records 1997-2010 sold to actuarial insurance company & ins premiums raised for under 50s. Who trusts Care.Data now?
Run out of T3, unable to source more, desperate and health declining
