Prescription charges – almost but not quite

A Swindon TUC Media Release

In his speech to New Labour’s conference today Gordon Brown announced that:

• From next year cancer patients will not have to pay for prescription charges;
• Over “the next few years” savings from the NHS drugs budget will be ploughed back into free prescriptions for people with “long term conditions”.

The first is a welcome step in relation to what has long been a national scandal, though it should not be forgotten that it has taken Brown 11 years to do it, and not without the pressure of a political crisis in which he is fighting for his survival.

The second of these promises appears conditional on the level of savings.

It should be borne in mind that the government is estimated to receives only £430 million this year from prescription charges. Recently it stumped up £50 billion for Northern Rock and even more recently £100 billion for a bunch of spivs in the city to cover their “toxic loans”.

I don’t know how much of the £430 million is comprised of prescriptions from cancer patients, but if you take away the receipts from them and people with chronic illnesses there would be barely any income left.

To maintain prescription charges for whoever might be left in England simply does not make sense. Therefore we should continue to press for abolition in England. Far from being a “gift” from Gordon, his announcement makes a nonsense of his government’s refusal to follow Scotland and Wales in abolishing prescription charges for the whole UK.

Visit: http://abolishprescriptioncharges.wordpress.com

For further comment ring Martin Wicks on 07786 394593

 

“Why make me pay for drugs that I need to live?”

Here’s part of an email we received from one person who needs regular prescriptions.

 

“I was born with a blood condition and have to buy tablets to help when needed, to help clot the blood.

 

Also I have Asthma and have to buy, on a regular basis, my inhalers and pills to help combat this.

 

On top of this anything else needed within that month bought over the counter for myself and my family.

 

I wish I didn’t have any of these conditions but why make me pay for drugs that I need to live?

 

People with Diabetes don’t have to pay and some of these sufferers bought on the condition themselves through their diet. Where’s the justice in that!

 

My husband always asks why he pays so much tax and national insurance and yet he pays on top for my prescriptions.” 

Drugs charges are ‘national disgrace’

Doctors join call for prescription charge axe

This is from today’s Swindon Advertiser

A DOCTOR from Swindon says it is time for changes to prescription charges. Dr Peter Swinyard made the comments hot on the heels of the launch of a Swindon TUC campaign to abolish prescription charges.

 

Charges have already been abolished in Wales and are being phased out in Scotland.

 

But in England patients still have to pay for their drugs as prescriptions are only automatically free for children and people over 60.

Call for free prescription charges

This is an article from today’s Western Daily Press.

Trade union chiefs have thrown their weight behind a growing campaign to end a national inequality by abolishing NHS prescription charges throughout the UK.

 

Payments have already been scrapped in Wales and are being phased out in Scotland but in England some people with life-threatening illnesses still have to pay for their drugs. Now Swindon TUC has launched a website highlighting what it believes is a hugely unjust situation and is urging individuals and organisations to sign a petition.

“Outdated and unjust”

This is an editorial from the Morning Star.

WHAT a revelation of government priorities is its refusal to countenance the abolition of NHS prescription charges in England.

 

It has no difficulty extending £50 billion to the Northern Rock bank, spending billions on overseas wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and feather-bedding big business and the rich by freezing direct taxation and slashing corporation tax.

Cancer patients forced to cut back on food to pay hefty prescription charges

Nearly half of cancer patients in England are being forced to cut back on basic needs such as food or heating, in order to pay for their prescriptions, a survey by Macmillan Cancer Support has found.

 

The survey also shows that nearly two thirds of cancer patients are missing out on simple leisure activities, like family days out, because they are struggling to cope with the added cost of multiple prescriptions – often over long periods of time.

 

The results come more than a year after the Government promised to review the prescription charges system in England, which currently only gives medical exemptions to some illnesses.

Ciarán Devane, Chief Executive at Macmillan Cancer Support, said:

 

‘It’s appalling that cancer patients in England are forced to cut back on basic necessities like food to pay for their urgently-needed medication. People must never be forced to choose between food or medication. The Government must act now. Patients should be allowed to focus on getting better instead of worrying how they’re going to find money for prescriptions.’

 

Cancer patients often need multiple prescriptions to ease distressing side effects of cancer treatment like nausea, fatigue, severe mouth ulcers, and debilitating diarrhoea and can spend hundreds of pounds each year paying for prescriptions.

 

Amanda from Surrey, who was diagnosed with breast cancer last September, said:

 

‘My treatment’s over but I’m still struggling. I’m now on statutory sick pay because I’ve been too unwell to work and quite frankly, have barely enough money to live on. I’ve had to adjust my lifestyle to cope with the cancer – a better diet, more heating, lots of prescriptions – and when you add it all up it’s expensive. Fighting cancer is hard enough without the terrible financial worry that comes with it.’

 

Macmillan believes prescription charges are a tax on illness and should be abolished in England.

 

To join Macmillan’s campaign visit www.macmillan.org.uk/campaigns

 

“I need at least four prescribed medications…”

Here is one patient’s experience of the problems with the cost of prescribed medications.

“I support this campaign fully. I think its a disgrace the amount they charge for prescriptions.

I am on long term medication after having major surgery a few years ago, and have been left with side effects which I will have for the rest of my life. I need at least 4 prescribed medications, which mounts up to a lot of money every other month. This is not including over the counter medication for routine symptoms: i.e. hay fever, headaches, flu, cough medicine (on occasion). Frankly I can no longer afford it, am thinking of which medication to drop, which I know I cant afford to do, health wise.”

“The case for maintaining prescription charges is in tatters today”

Colin Fox, as a Scottish Socialist Party Member of the Scottish Parliament moved a Bill for the abolition of prescription charges. This opened the debate which led to the SNP government introducing legislation to phase them out by 2011. He is joint national spokesperson of the SSP.

 

“I presented the Bill to abolish Prescription Charges in Scotland to the Holyrood Parliament in 2003 because I believe they are in effect a tax on the sick. Prescription charges are in my mind an affront to the founders of the NHS who made a profound and noble promise in 1947 to provide the best medical care possible to everyone, regardless of their means or status.

 

The fact that charges were later introduced as ‘a short term emergency measure’ in 1951, initially by a Labour Government keen to raise money to fight a war in Korea is unfortunate to say the least.

 

Now there are nearly a million people in Britain who regularly go without the medicines prescribed for them by their doctors because they simply cannot afford the charge of £7 per item.

 

The case for maintaining prescription charges is in tatters today. They simply cannot be justified on medical grounds, on financial grounds, or on the basis of any logic. When you look at those who are exempt and those who must pay then all sense goes out the window. The richest people in Britain often get their medicines free – like JK Rowling (entitled to free prescriptions as a new mum) or the Queen (entitled as a senior citizen), whilst on the other hand millions of the poorest patients must pay a small fortune for theirs. Some chronically sick patients often have to finds the money for a cocktail of tablets again and again and again.

 

The Welsh Parliament led the way by abolishing these infamous charges in 2006. The new SNP government up here have accepted my case for abolition and promised to do so by 2011- we will keep them to that promise. So I welcome Swindon TUC’s efforts to ensure that millions of patients in England benefit too.

 

I pledge to do all I can to help you in your campaign for health justice.”

“Prescription charges can be just one more barrier and should go”

Dr Ron Singer is a GP and President of the Medical Practitioners Union, a section of the union UNITE. Here he explains why he believes Prescription charges should be abolished.

“As a practising GP in a deprived area of north London, I know that the cost of prescriptions can put some people off getting the medicines they need. We talk about there being an ‘Inverse Care Law’ which says the more health care a person needs the less they get in the UK and here is another example. No well off person would think twice abut paying for the medicines they need. The less well off who often have more frequent need for medicines will be the group that think twice about filling the prescription their GP has given them.The government talks a lot about reducing the gap between the health of the poorest in society and the better off. Prescription charges can be just one more barrier and so should go. Unpopular as we are told it may be, raising general taxation is a much better and ‘healthier’ way to generate money for the NHS.

The Labour Government is not popular at the moment. Supporting the NHS instead of privatising it and helping people who are ill to pay for their medicines would reassert the principles and values of the NHS that the majority of the public still uphold and would be a tonic to us all.”

 

Macmillan Cancer Support campaign to abolish prescription charges

The Macmillian Cancer Support charity is campaigning for the abolition of preccription charges. Macmillan says it believe ‘in the following principles:

• No one should have to pay for their prescriptions – it is a tax on illness.
• No one should be in the position where they can’t afford their prescription.
• Some people are already exempt from prescription charges, but the current list of medical exemptions is over 40 years old so a review is long overdue. 
• Most people under 60 with cancer have to pay for their prescriptions. This unfair system means that nearly one in ten cancer patients (9%) aged 55 and under who do qualify for charges, are unable to pay for prescriptions.
• The Government needs to think again on their position that they will not put any more money into a solution. The review must consider new ways to fund extra spending on the prescriptions budget in England – such as more effective use of non-branded medicines which could save hundreds of millions of pounds a year.

Visit their website here:

http://www.macmillan.org.uk/