Payment for prescriptions

Whitewavemark2

I think one way is to look at how other countries provide health care and try to take the best.

I did look at the various health care systems at one time, and was impressed.

Just because our system was pioneering when it began doesn't mean it is still the best for a larger population with far more treatments available now.

It is a worry as the Tories are surreptitiously changing our system, but there is nothing democratic about it.

We, as a country, I am 100% convinced do not want a USA style health care system, but that is where it appears to being sold. Sunak has been in talks with USA health providers.

Thankyou BlueBell you're the first to mention privatisation by stealth, it would be yet another nail in the coffin of the NHS

As long as it’s efficiently means tested, I honestly don’t see why not. It’s often said how much better healthcare is in other European countries - but many do charge for various things.

According to my Swedish friend, everyone there pays something for prescriptions (with an annual cap), for visits to GP and A&E, and the ‘board’ element of hospital stays.
And Sweden is popularly supposed to be some sort of socialist Utopia.

As for pensioners’ free prescriptions, it used to infuriate me to see how a friend of ours stockpiled masses of various items - only for them all to be periodically thrown away. I once counted over 60 items in his bathroom - half a dozen each of this and that. When he died he left 2 houses paid for and well over £1m cash. But he was as tight as they come - if he’d had to pay even £2-3 each I bet he’d never have taken so many things he evidently didn’t need. He was even getting paracetamol on prescription, FGS - it costs pennies in supermarkets.

And I bet he’s not the only such case, far from it.

What government will ever have the guts to introduce any such thing, though? They’ll all be terrified of losing votes.
People moan about creeping privatisation, but unless we start paying a bit more, that’s going to be the alternative.

A bit off topic, but I for one would like to see charges for people who end up in A&E purely because they’ve had far too much to drink!

What about people who are too fat (in your opinion Witzend).

How much should they pay?

Or people who come off motorbikes when they could have taken the bus?

Following on from my post, I strongly believe that it should also be run not for profit which is why I think a charitable trust is right.

I have long thought that prescriptions should not be free. I have seen many cases of people re-ordering a full sheet of prescription medication, even if they do not need it. There seems little management of repeat prescriptions by GPs. Anything that is offered free, will invariably be abused by some. Just a nominal fee (not suggesting the full price of drugs), would, in my opinion, deter people from re-ordering drugs they no longer need. I think this should apply to everyone, except perhaps. those dependent on life saving drug regimes for chronic illnesses.

Witzend I don't think anybody doubts that people need to pay more for the NHS. The question is: do people pay as individuals for the treatment they need on a "Pay as you go" basis or through a separate top-up insurance - or do people pay through the tax system, so that those who can afford to pay more contribute more, while people receive the treatment they need, regardless of ability to pay?

Certainly raise the age of free prescriptions. We were at our top earnings and no longer supporting our children when we started to get free prescriptions. I’m sure Rod Stewart and Mick Jagger don’t need them either!

I’m not sure where this vast accumulation of drugs comes in.

DH has heart problems and gets a monthly prescription, all are used.

I’ve had anti-biopics in the past - all used.

I will admit to not using the tamoxifen prescribed, but never went back for a repeat prescription. Why would I?

People just don't think things through, IMO.

If the problem is people ordering too much of a prescription item, why not manage how much can be ordered in any time period? I have a repeat prescription and can only order it after a given period has passed. I'm also asked every now and again if I still need it. Why impose charges that won't even cover the cost, purely as a deterrent and to make you feel that nobody is getting one past on you?

Recently I had Covid and got a medication delivered to the house late at night. Free of course, I'm in Scotland. I didn't have to wait till the next day and I didn't have to try to organise somebody to go and get it for me, get them to pay and make sure they got their money back from me.

The availability of free prescriptions is about having a better life and society. Not something that comes high on this list of priorities for people who can't see past the £-sign.

Nagmad2016

I have long thought that prescriptions should not be free. I have seen many cases of people re-ordering a full sheet of prescription medication, even if they do not need it. There seems little management of repeat prescriptions by GPs. Anything that is offered free, will invariably be abused by some. Just a nominal fee (not suggesting the full price of drugs), would, in my opinion, deter people from re-ordering drugs they no longer need. I think this should apply to everyone, except perhaps. those dependent on life saving drug regimes for chronic illnesses.

Who's to say that private insurers wouldn't continue to issue unnecessary repeat prescriptions?

I confess that I have hardly ever paid for prescriptions in my life. I was diagnosed with diabetes in my mid 30s, prescriptions are free for expectant mothers and for a year after the birth and now I'm over 60, I don't pay anyway. There have been times in my life when I could have ticked three exemption boxes. I don't stockpile, by the way, and my medication is reviewed annually.

Perhaps they should realign free prescriptions for pensioners to the age that you receive your pension. My DH was amazed that he no longer had to pay for his regular prescription at 60 what had changed he was still earning as much money as when he was 59 and certainly not a pensioner

rosie1959

Perhaps they should realign free prescriptions for pensioners to the age that you receive your pension. My DH was amazed that he no longer had to pay for his regular prescription at 60 what had changed he was still earning as much money as when he was 59 and certainly not a pensioner

That was so the age for men and women could be equalised. I think the government does want to increase the age to state pension age.

Means testing for anything is expensive, degrading and discriminatory and just fuels the flames of the intentionally divisive tabloid tales of people supposedly abusing the system. The first thing which would make sense though, is to raise the free prescription age in England in line with retirement age; I know plenty of people still working, at the top of their game financially, and getting free prescriptions because they are over 60. It is not as if you can redistribute it as can be done with the winter fuel allowance. A fairer scheme would be an annual pass, free to those in certain categories such as in receipt of pension credit or UC, thus the hated means testing part would already be done, and costing say £10 a month to everyone else.

I am also unable to order repeat prescriptions ahead of time, which can be annoying if we are going away, but makes sense (although why anyone would want to stockpile inhalers is beyond me). Also, they are reviewed regularly - I can see my records online and the reviews show up on there. If I don't order as regularly as usual (eg if my asthma is better controlled and I don't use an inhaler as often as I might) I am asked if I still need the repeats.

I doubt if many drugs with a street value are put on repeat, so there is no incentive there to over-order, but maybe people with Dementia or similar forgetting to take tablets explains stockpiles? It is concerning that they aren't taking their medication as prescribed - presumably there are fewer check-ups with a GP than there used to be, and things are being allowed to build up, which can't be good for people with long-term conditions.

I understood the Government were considering raising free prescription age to state pension age, which seems reasonable if some people are paying for prescriptions.
There is a much bigger issue about whether the NHS should be free at the point of contact or whether people should pay something. The difficulty is, if we pay, who should get it free? The current system of free prescriptions seems quite random. Some well off people get them free and some on quite low incomes pay. Some people with chronic conditions get them free and some have to pay.

Doodledog

*If you have a State pension and in Hospital for more that 4 weeks you are supposed to declare it, as you not "entitled" to it. How many do that?*
I don't have a state pension yet, but I didn't know you were supposed to declare it if you are in hospital. Probably a lot of people are also unaware of that. I suppose there is a certain logic in that the State is 'keeping you' when you are in hospital; but how do people pay the rent or other commitments if their income is stopped - outgoings are not restricted to food and/or other things that would be covered in a hospital stay.

Hi Doodledog. I’m having a senior moment and couldn’t find the post that mentioned the State Pension, but the information is wrong. For most state benefits anything over 28 days in hospital has to be declared, but not so for State Pension - payment is not affected by hospital stays or going into care.

Benefits like PIP, DLA and AA stop after 28 days, rent contributions are stopped after 26 weeks and council tax benefits stop after 52 weeks. All other benefits are subject to various limits depending on whether they are contribution or income based (means tested).

I think going down the road of charging for being an in patient is a minefield and it will involve redrawing benefit rules and the dreaded means test a lot more - not a fan of it as I think it’s a race to the bottom.

Hi Pammie1
My post was in response to another that said you had to declare it, which was corrected later.

I agree that it would be wrong to stop or reduce pensions for people in hospital, as even things like broadband charges and mobile phones are on contracts that have to be paid whether you use them or not.

volver

There two kinds of people in the world.

Those that think the NHS should free at the point of use and that funding should be from the public purse whether you are the Queen or the person who cleans her toilets.

And those that think money is the answer to everything and people should be sanctioned for missing appointments, and that the cost of collecting £4 a day from an as-yet-undefined proportion of hospital residents is in any way a valid response, when what is actually required is an overhaul of the NHS.

Move to Scotland. Prescriptions free at point of need.

Only just read this thread and want to endorse Volver's response, apart from moving to Scotland.

I would get rid of free prescriptions, the various winter fuel payments, free bus passes and all the other bells and whistles of dribbles of little bits of money here and there that those over retirement aage get.

It is treating us like children, who cannot be trusted with money unless it is carefully ring fenced so we do not spend it in sweets, wine or cigarettes.

Replace them all by a cross-the-board pension increase that costs the same as these extras and save on all the civil servants and costs of administration of all these extras and leave us to decide how to spend our money.

Callistemon21, I’m not surprised at the number of no-shows. Dh was not,long ago given an appt.for a minor procedure - at the wrong clinic. He turned up on time for it, only to be turned away. So that surgeon’s time - at the right clinic - was wasted.

And a BiL with cancer who was having regular appts. recently had an appt. letter sent to the address he’d moved from 17 years previously! Just as well the residents knew where to forward the letter to - in time.
It would seem that all too often, NHS admin is chaotic.

Plus I’ve heard of so many cases where relatives of people with dementia have repeatedly told the hospital not to send appt letters to the dementia sufferer - or at least to copy a relative in - because even if the person doesn’t throw the letter away, they will never remember.
But the same thing happens again and again - ‘Oh, we can’t do that - patient confidentiality….’
Yes, but what’s the point, if they’re just going to miss appt. after appt and waste everybody’s time?

I would get rid of free prescriptions, the various winter fuel payments, free bus passes and all the other bells and whistles of dribbles of little bits of money here and there that those over retirement age get.
I can see the thinking behind this except that free prescriptions for older people are in recognition of the fact that older people are more likely to need more treatment than younger ones.

Leaving them free means that people don't have to choose between treating one condition or another, or just not taking the treatment at all. It's not a level playing field if everyone gets an extra £10 a week but some have to spend £20 (or more) to stay alive and others nothing.

Nagmad2016

I have long thought that prescriptions should not be free. I have seen many cases of people re-ordering a full sheet of prescription medication, even if they do not need it. There seems little management of repeat prescriptions by GPs. Anything that is offered free, will invariably be abused by some. Just a nominal fee (not suggesting the full price of drugs), would, in my opinion, deter people from re-ordering drugs they no longer need. I think this should apply to everyone, except perhaps. those dependent on life saving drug regimes for chronic illnesses.

Also a consideration is that people who have a stoma of any kind get their supplies on prescription and these would need to be exempted, so if the fee were levied as a proportion of the full cost it would probably still be unaffordable for most as stoma products cost a fortune. The problem with charging even a nominal fee for prescriptions is that it will disproportionately affect the vulnerable. I think a better idea would be to more vigorously implement the system of GP medication reviews. Ours have been farmed out to the pharmacist who doesn’t seem to have much idea as to whether meds are still needed or not.

I don't agree with suggestions of £4 per night or whatever for food, bed and lodgings, apart from being the first step away from universal health care free at the point of delivery, can you imagine the number of staff involved? Fussing around patients' beds waving a card machine/producing spreadsheets of number of patients per ward and funds collected, then said spreadsheets being discussed in meetings with managers? Nope.