Scrapping free prescriptions for people 60-66

there are many people who fall between the rules for UC etc yet are struggling.
other people who are comfortably off probably cannot understand this; they assume if you are poor, then there is help, and if you don;t meet the criteria then you are ok.
real life isnt like that.
such a lot is down to luck or circumstances.
and didn't men get free prescriptions at age 60, when they retired at 65. another disbenefit for women to take it away.

I am in a strange place that I do qualify at the moment as a 65 year old and having epilepsy but haven’t acquired the MedEx certificate as I do qualify under the over 60 rule. When April comes I won’t be covered and will have to apply for a certificate to cover me for a few months but can’t apply until them as I am already covered under another category. This means I may have to pay for 14 items each month for a number of months until it’s sorted out. I don’t have that sort of funds. I also think that for some people some drugs could be graded say A, B, orC and it may encourage people not to use the doctor for unnecessary prescriptions and pay for over the counter treatments instead. The quarterly and twelve month pass was useful in my life before I was 60 and had epilepsy but I still had serious illnesses which have been just as debilitating, requiring medication such as heart problems.

Prescription charges should be abolished totally. They were never on the agenda when Attlee's government created the NHS.

Although free in Scotland I would prefer a dispensing fee of say £1 per prescription. I feel this would stop those who will accept anything which is free whether they will use it or not. We hear of people clearing out the homes of elderly relatives who it turns out have stockpiled unused medicines for years.

I can remember my MIL getting a new set of teeth every 6 months because they were free, also always needing elastic stockings.After her death we found quite alot of unopened packets of elastic stockings plus loads of painkillers which she had obviously stockpiled because they were free.

pinkprincess

I can remember my MIL getting a new set of teeth every 6 months because they were free, also always needing elastic stockings.After her death we found quite alot of unopened packets of elastic stockings plus loads of painkillers which she had obviously stockpiled because they were free.

I don't know how old your MiL was, but my parents and in-laws were born in the 1920s when medical care and medicines weren't free. I can understand that someone from that generation could in some way enjoy getting a stock of freebies just because they were free. It's a weird thing to do and I'm sure that it wasn't something done by most of that generation (or by their parent's generation, who also lived long enough to enjoy the NHS) Certainly none of our family did it.

Espeee stockpiling of drugs often happens when people are on multiple daily medication regimes, and decide off their own initiative not to take one or more of them, usually they don’t tell anybody they have done this. The drugs are on a repeat prescription, and keep on coming until somebody, often the district nurse is eventually told and the prescription changed. I understand your point on prescriptions being subject to a nominal dispensing fee, but unfortunately I don’t think it would stop this particular issue, which is a really difficult one to crack.

Is this happening (the introduction of fees), or is it still being mooted?

I haven't seen or heard anything about it for a while, but OMRF's post above suggests that it is on its way. I have Graves Disease, so would probably be exempt anyway, unless the rules have changed, but I'm guessing that I would need some sort of proof.

Thankyou MaizieD

My MIL was born in 1902 and was brought up in poverty.Getting anything free was heaven to her so understandable she grabbed anything she could in fact she made a meal of it!