NHS Prescriptions

[AB Editor]

 

This poll is closed.

What Should The NHS Be Able to Prescribe? (poll following on from this question)

• Products available in shops shouldn't ever be available on the nhs - 77 votes
• 57%
• Cheap products available in shops (such as sunscreen and paracetomol) shouldn't be available on the nhs but expensive ones should - 49 votes
• 36%
• Any health products (including items such as gluten-free foods) should be available on the nhs - 10 votes
• 7%

See final stats

Stats until: 18:40 Sun 28th Apr 2024 (Refreshed every 5 minutes)

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[Jackdaw33]

If they are soluble you can buy 100, otherwise you are restricted to 32.

[Prudie]

If you buy branded painkillers at any chemist such as Nurofen or Anadin you are only allowed 2 packets at a time. The thing that stunned me was suncream – why should that be on prescription?

[jno]

might be for people with sensitive skin who need to wear it all the time?

[Jackdaw33]

It doesn't matter whether they are branded or not. 32 non-soluble tablets is the most you can get in one go.

[sunny-dave]

Here is the RPS guidance :

http://www.rpharms.com/legal-classification-of-medicines-db/paracetamol-legal-status-table.asp

Only 32 per pack - but up to 100 per transaction in a pharmacy.

[jourdain2]

I remember traipsing around chemists shops, on our yearly visit from France, to buy paracetamol and hydrocortisone cream because they are so much cheaper here. You are only allowed a minimum amount.

We are approaching the practical parameters of 'means-testing' or 2 different systems. Some people may find gluten-free foods too expensive for them, others can bite the bullet and afford it.

Going back to the French system - it is by no means perfect, believe me, but the 'Amelie' system exists whereby people who are genuinely very hard-up (they have to prove it to the nth degree) can be accepted and have all their health care paid for. Everyone else pays a percentage (30 - 40% depending) unless they take out a 'Complementaire' Insurance policy to cover the difference. We have to start rcognising different abilities to pay i.m.o..

[sunny-dave]

I'd oppose that very vehemently, jourdain - it would yet again be a tax on the prudent middle-class who have provided for themselves and their families, whilst letting the indigent continue to exercise there 'rights' without a thought for their responsibilities. Either we all pay, or no-one does.

[Jackdaw33]

Is it not so very much different to the situation which prevailed before the NHS? You would pay 2/6 for a doctor's visit whilst those 'on the panel' would be covered by the welfare system.

[jourdain2]

Sunny-Dave In my heart I agree with you completely, but I am trying to be practical. I don't want the NHS to collapse and it is one of the ways I think it can continue. The problem lies in identifying the feckless 'care-nothings' with the genuine 'on their uppers'. I don't have an answer to that, but at the moment the prudent are suffering by being deprived of services they have paid for, so I thought that this system might minimise that? Politically it is a keg of dynamite to say to one group -'You are a drag, you pay nothing and you claim all at others' expense'. How can that be got over?

[sunny-dave]

£10 to see the GP, £1 per item on prescription.

No exemptions, none at all, everyone over 18 and under 100 pays?

[Jackdaw33]

It might be a start if we restricted help to those who have genuine medical need instead of gleefully funding anyone who comes along who fancies a sex change. (Sits back and waits for the flak).

[Mamyalynne]

I don't think there is a one simple solution to all this.

I certainly know of a few people who ignore a lump, change in bowel movements and many other potential signals to possible worrying problems because £10 to visit the GP would mean no electric that week.

[Mamyalynne]

^ who would ignore

[sunny-dave]

It's not easy mamya - or someone would have done it by now.

But so many of the NHS's problems are caused by 'frequent flyers' and 'inappropriate attenders' both at the GP and A&E - perhaps there needs to be a yearly quota after which you pay?

[jourdain2]

No flak from me JD - that is what I am suggesting. Rigorous checks would be needed. There should also be 'La Liste' of conditions which are covered 100% regardless - in France these include cancer, heart disease and the like, very serious, life-threatening conditions.
Non-essential plastic surgery etc., should be paid for - any profit to go towards funding the essential, such as hare-lip repair in babies. All sex-change ops. are a matter for the individual concerned, they are not life-threatening or crippling. Etc., etc.. There is a longish list. I know these things are important to the individuals concerned, but we can't afford it.

S-Dave...........as you get older you need more prescriptions, and you are on a limited pension....and have paid in all your life to cover your health-care. I would go along with everyone paying, say £5 per doctor's appointment, but of equal importance is the need for a system which fines people for missing an appointment (another thing we got used to in France). 15 Euros if you missed 1 appointment and if you missed 2 you were 'off the books' and had to find another doctor. I hasten to add that genuine reasons for missing an appointment (car broke down etc.)were accepted (provided you had the garage bill).

[gumboil]

It's fine providing a link to what pharamacies should be providing in terms of paracetamol, but I've never come across a pharmacy in the UK that will provide you with more than 32 at a time. In the last few years, I've travelled the length and breadth of the UK and ask in pharmacies deliberately. I'm always refused. And no, I don't look like a dodgy git!

[gumboil]

Prudie, sunscreen is used for a number of dermatological conditions including Tuberous Sclerosis. The latter is a dreadful disease and I have a friend who has contracted a brain tumour which is typical under the circumstances. He is only in his late twenties and the prognosis is grim.

[diddlydo]

The rules about paracetomol etc are ludicrous. In my small town you can go into the Co-op and buy 32, then next door into Boots for another 32, then next door but one into Sainsbury's for 32 then back to Co-op etc etc and get as many as you like in the end with a bit of patience and minimal walking. So what's the point of the "rule"?

[jno]

a yearly quota? So the sickest pay most? I don't see that idea working well, though it would no doubt be popular among the healthy.

[woofgang]

if patients are going to be fined for missed appointments, then services should be fined for late appointments, undue waiting times for an appointment/procedure and appointment/procedure cancellations and the patient should receive the fine.