HeadingNorth Posted January 24, 2012 Share Posted January 24, 2012 I also think what Rupert says is about right. How long ago is "not that long ago". I cannot ever remember all scrips being free. They were all free upon the inception of the NHS in 1948; if I recall correctly, the first charges were introduced in 1949, since it became clear even to Nye Bevan, and in very short order, that "free healthcare for all" would bankrupt the country. The list of diseases which grant exemption has not, so far as I know, been revised since it was first introduced. Things like diabetes and epilepsy, which were lifelong incurable diseases already known about in 1949, remain on that list; diseases which are lifelong, but weren't known about in 1949, or for which no long-term treatment existed, were not on it then, and have never been placed on it as they probably should be. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
selphie Posted January 24, 2012 Share Posted January 24, 2012 My son is diabetic, within 48 hours of having no insulin he would be dead. There's nothing he can do to help his condition or his situation. He has to have insulin and he has to have it several times a day, every day. My husband is asthmatic, he controls his condition by exercising, increasing his vital capacity and therefore barely using his inhaler. He does everything in his power to ensure he is looking after himself. He pays for his prescriptions, and hardly has any. I don't think asthma and diabetes is a fair comparison. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rupert_Baehr Posted January 24, 2012 Share Posted January 24, 2012 no, i'm afraid not. you can get 3 prescriptions from the doc but you cant get them all together from the chemist, only one lot per month to stop you taking an overdose. i am diabetic and take half a dozen different tablets which i would not take if i had to pay for them, especially as i hate taking medicines anyway. alas, there will never be a cure whilst big pharma is making a killing out of killing us and the nhs. '..to stop you taking an overdose...' Are you sure that's the reason? I don't think you'd need a whole month's worth of insulin to overdose ... 2 or 3 days worth in one shot should do the trick. Similarly, a few days' dose of a sulfanylurea should work, and a really hefty dose of lizard spit would probably have the same effect on you as it would on the lizard's prey. I don't like taking medications either - but if I had to pay for medications and I really needed them, I'd find the money somehow. I don't like some of the medications I do take (some of them have really unpleasant side-effects) but the alternative - not taking them - is rather worse. '...there will never be a cure whilst big pharma is making a killing out of killing us and the nhs...' Do you really think somebody is sitting on a cure for diabetes? (You have been taking your meds, I assume? - This isn't an example of hyper-glycaemic reasoning, is it? ) There are vast sums being spent on a cure for diabetes - and such a cure (stem-cell based) may be possible within a decade or two, but when a cure is possible, 'big pharma' (and others) are going to make a great deal of money out of it. Not only that, but given that diabetes is a metabolic dysfunction and like all other metabolic dysfunctions has an hereditary element, then if more diabetics live long enough to breed, there will potentially be even more diabetic patients to cure in the future! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HeadingNorth Posted January 24, 2012 Share Posted January 24, 2012 I don't think asthma and diabetes is a fair comparison. Asthma may not be, but there definitely are some diseases which have just as much justification for exemption from charges as does diabetes, yet are not granted it. I think it's just one of those things that has never had enough attention called to it for anything to actually get done. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rupert_Baehr Posted January 24, 2012 Share Posted January 24, 2012 ... you can get 3 prescriptions from the doc but you cant get them all together from the chemist, only one lot per month to stop you taking an overdose... I wonder whether that's to reduce waste? I wonder how many (tens? hundreds? of) thousands of pounds worth of unused medications are sitting around in medicine cabinets around the country? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HeadingNorth Posted January 24, 2012 Share Posted January 24, 2012 I wonder whether that's to reduce waste? I wonder how many (tens? hundreds? of) thousands of pounds worth of unused medications are sitting around in medicine cabinets around the country? It was supposed to be to reduce waste. I'm not at all sure it has worked; every prescription that is written out secures a fee for the doctor, and every one dispensed secures a fee for the pharmacy, so monthly prescriptions instead of quarterly ones mean three times as much spent in fees. A bigger problem, by far, is the number of nursing homes which request that the doctors prescribe medicines on a weekly basis, which means doctor and pharmacy secure 13 fees each instead of just one for a quarterly prescription. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
margarete Posted January 24, 2012 Share Posted January 24, 2012 Hi BarryRiley and anyone else with Asthma. Just in case you haven't come across this info: a low salt diet can help with asthma. http://www.asthma.org.uk/news_media/news/lowsalt_diet.html May 1st 2012. Unfortunately, this is now a broken link. Asthma.org.uk appear to have removed all reference to salt from their website. HTH Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rupert_Baehr Posted January 24, 2012 Share Posted January 24, 2012 It was supposed to be to reduce waste. I'm not at all sure it has worked; every prescription that is written out secures a fee for the doctor, and every one dispensed secures a fee for the pharmacy, so monthly prescriptions instead of quarterly ones mean three times as much spent in fees. A bigger problem, by far, is the number of nursing homes which request that the doctors prescribe medicines on a weekly basis, which means doctor and pharmacy secure 13 fees each instead of just one for a quarterly prescription. My prescriptions are written/renewed annually. One 3-month issue and 3 refills. (If something changes, I go to the doctor and get the prescription altered.) The prescription is entered into a computer and the pill robot fills it. If I want a renewal, I phone the pill robot, enter the prescription number and pick it up the next day. (I go to a drive up window and am given a brown paper bag. A bit like Burger King, but you don't get any ketchup - nor do you get fries with it.) Good Robot! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ms Macbeth Posted January 24, 2012 Share Posted January 24, 2012 My husband had 7 different drugs prescribed when he had heart failure and after a 3x bypass was on a lot of medication for a long time. We used the prepayment option. However, we did think that a younger person with a family to support might have some difficult decisions to make with regard to paying for their prescriptions. As heart attacks are the single biggest killer in the UK, wouldn't it save lives if people with serious heart conditions were on free medication? Now we're over 60, our prescriptions are free so we don't have to worry if he needs loads of medication again. Currently he's only on 3. I suppose we could all make a case for different illnesses and conditions. It depends on our own experiences. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lolli_pop Posted January 24, 2012 Share Posted January 24, 2012 Hi BarryRiley and anyone else with Asthma. Just in case you haven't come across this info: a low salt diet can help with asthma. http://www.asthma.org.uk/news_media/news/lowsalt_diet.html HTH That's a very small study (24 people) over a fairly small period of time (two weeks). A 2008 study of nearly 200 adults with asthma over a period of six weeks found that salt made no difference. Saline inhalation (halotherapy) does seem to help reduce symptoms. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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