Ravi's blog: My manifesto for a fairer prescription system

04/08/2009

I heard the other day that the government proposes to abolish prescription charges throughout England in the near future. It seems like another political ploy as the money would surely still need to come from somewhere – which would undoubtedly mean they'd just increase taxes again!

Personally I don't think we have a great system within community pharmacy with regard to NHS prescriptions. Things seem unjust; last week I did a prescription for a diabetic patient (who was 'medically exempt') and so didn't pay for his medication...but it was for malathion!

How can someone with diabetes be more likely to contract nits or suffer advanced medical complications? Surely a person who is 'medically exempt' should only be exempt from paying for the medication used for treating that particular condition, not for their choice of everything and anything including head lice treatment!

It reminded me of an incident when a young lady came in during my pre-reg year for some head lice preparation. She worked part time and was not exempt from prescription charges. She knew that a prescription would cost £7.20 and when I told her the cheapest OTC preparation was £3.95, she felt it was too expensive and opted to only try the wet-combing technique.

If I had the power I would simply make everybody pay for prescriptions BUT the more you need something, the cheaper and cheaper it gets until eventually it's free. So a diabetic who is insulin dependent would be in the 'free' category quickly due to regular insulin prescriptions, whereas 22 year old Mr. Bloggs on income support, with a one-off minor infection may not want to go and get his currently free antibiotics (which might not even work) as he would need to pay.

This would filter out all those people who go and get a prescription, even if unnecessary, simply because it is free. So asthmatics who regularly need inhalers or those on hyperthyroid drugs would therefore benefit under my proposal, but when they contract head lice, they would still have to pay for it, as should a patient with

diabetes, hypothyroidism etc. Maybe I should ask Gordon Brown for a

job!...

Ravi Patel MP – has a certain ring to it eh? :)

Comment on this Story

1. Posted by Tanya Patel, On 20/08/2009 15:02

I think the same. There are so many people who take advantage of having an exemption so they ask the doctor for what they want. I get some people who order a whole lot of stuff and then they don't even need it and return it to us and i think what a bloody waste.
A lot of people take advantage of having an exemption and i think that it is really unfair to those who have to pay £7.20 each time.

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2. Posted by Tanya Patel, On 20/08/2009 15:02

I think the same. There are so many people who take advantage of having an exemption so they ask the doctor for what they want. I get some people who order a whole lot of stuff and then they don't even need it and return it to us and i think what a bloody waste.
A lot of people take advantage of having an exemption and i think that it is really unfair to those who have to pay £7.20 each time.

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3. Posted by Ashley Smith, On 07/08/2009 14:34

there is so much wastage of medicine as patient returns under the nhs system because exempt people order things on repeat even if they don't need them just because they're free and might use it. If they had to initially pay for that item a number of times before it became cheaper or free and didnt need it as much maybe then they wouldnt keep ordering uneccesary items.

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