Would You Like A Guilt Trip On Prescription?

[Marshwarble]

Would you like "Paid for by the UK taxpayer" on your lifesaving prescription? http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-33345356

[youngmafbog]

I dont see the problem with this at all. People need to be educated that the NHS is not free. I'm pretty sure many will not realize quite how much some medicines cost.

The scandal is 80% getting them free.

And yes Canary, the Welfare State needs to be dismantled. It needs to be there for the properly sick as a saftey net, not as a lifestyle.

I too have had to pay some eye watering amounts in EHI/NHI. I dont mind so long as it is well spent, but that is not the case at the present.

[paddywak]

Doesn't bother me either after all I paid in for forty years.

[jno]

where did that 80% figure come from, ymb?

[retrocop]

When my mother was living on her own she was on about 15 different medications a day. As her health deteriorated I sold her house in Peacehaven and moved her to a flat round the corner from us. Her medicine cabinet and other chests of drawers were full of boxes of repeat medication. She had more drugs than Boots. I totted up the sum of each of the 15 medications having consulted my wife's copy of the British National Formulary (also known as MIMS) and each script totalled about £300. She just used to tick the boxes on her prescription if she needed that medicine or not.All those drugs were hoarded in drawers and most had passed their shelf life particularly the 3 different inhalers she had.That was scandalous IMO and I took over her repeat prescriptions from then on. I told her that if she had to pay the full cost of her drugs she would be more selective of her requirements.Yes she did work all her life and pay her taxes and N.I. but that doesn't excuse unnecessary wastage.

[RATTER15]

I see drugs wasted on a grand scale through care homes! If a resident dies one day, we will often still get all his meds delivered that month because they are prepared in advance by the pharmacy. this will often be 100s of very expensive pills. at the end of that month, these meds will be returned along with many 100s of other meds that come from other residents that have had their medication stopped or changed. these can often be thousands of tablets. they are all the destroyed!! and this is happening in almost every care home in the UK. If the medication leaves the Pharmacy it must be destroyed if not used. I hasten to add, most of this medication is still "sealed" in blister packs or "sealed" in bottles.

When we have a resident admitted to hospital, which is quite a regular occurrence, the ambulance staff will usually ask for "all" their medication to go with them, we now refuse to send their medication as it is not used by the hospital staff, they use their own stocks, and the medication is never returned to us, even if the resident comes home again on the same day. Again, this medication will be destroyed and we then need to get more medication issued by their GP. It really is a crazy system!!

[ichkeria]

I love the idea that instead of charging people for missing appointments, the government might consider informing people - presumably at extra expense to the NHS - what the missed appointment WOULD have cost had they'd been billed for it

[Sqad]

jno

http://www.politics.co.uk/reference/nhs-prescription-charges

It 's actually 88%

[Ric.ror]

A bit like you retro - my mother has lots of tablets she does not take - so much so I have started taking her calcium tablets
When my stepfather died we had at least two big black bags full of drugs - the pharmacist just collected them to be destroyed. Such a shame - we could have sent them to someone who needed them

[whirlyhurly]

This already happens at the PDSA, so I wonder if they thought good idea we'll copy.

[bazwillrun]

"I love the idea that instead of charging people for missing appointments"

as if that would actually work...another sprawling administrative dept trying to get money from people the vast majority of whom probably have none...more work for baliffs and debt collection agencies i suppose

[New Judge]

I haven't read all of this so apologies if this has already been said, but there are plenty of other things I would like to see marked "Paid for by the UK taxpayer" before prescribed drugs. Things such as cigarettes, booze and illegal drugs for people who do not work; taxis to "school" for delinquent children; excessive salaries for quangocrats; tax-free salaries and travelling expenses for EU officials; moving vans and crates to uproot the EU Parliament between Brussels and Strasbourg a dozen times a year; lawyers provided to conduct spurious and frivolous asylum appeals. I could go on but it's too hot.

[roopower]

Not bothered, I worked and paid my due, so I've probably paid for my own prescriptions!

[ludwig]

It's fair enough. In the same vein, I'd like to see the same message stamped on all the glasses in the house of commons bars.

[jno]

thanks, Sqad.

[Prudie]

I don't understand why people are emotional about this. It wouldn't bother me at all and I see at as aimed as the occasionally sick rather than the long term. If up to 50% of prescribed drugs are not taken that has to be addressed. I know it goes on from talking to people I know.
It will also be pointless - like warnings on cig packets.

[Bathsheba]

How about if we were told the cost of the freebie perks and jaunts and weekends away that the drug companies give to GPs?