Just been charged £23 for doctor's note!

[fruitbowl]

Sorry if anyone's posted up about this before but I think it's outrageous!

My DD has just dveloped a moderate nut allergy and so the school has to have anti-histamine medicine in case she has a reaction. For this they need a doctor's note.

I've just been told the letter is readfy for me to collect and it will cost £23. They did tell me when I asked for it that there would be a charge for the secretaries time but I was thinking it would be more like a fiver.

Anyone else had to pay this much??

[giraffesCantRunA10k]

Thats terrible!

[cory]

sounds alot- round here I think it's more like a tenner

but my GP always seems to find some reason not to charge us (bless him)

[cass66]

send the school the bill...

[MuppetsMuggle]

Ours is £12, but when I needed something similar for DD he let the charge go

[ilove]

Normal...in fact cheaper than here!

[tiggerlovestobounce]

Hopefully the school will pay it for you.

[SimpleAsABC]

Here it depends which doctor does it. Last one was 15quid but the one prior was only 5!

[Takver]

Sounds utterly unreasonable given that you have no choice - what else can you do but get the note.

We have never been charged for a doctors note although we did get a very sarcastically worded one (aimed at the authorities, not us) when about half of dd's class were on a tv programme and the whole lot needed notes for the council!

[tink123]

That is so wrong. If you were asking for a passport form to be filled in or a letter for other reasons, fair enough. However you need that letter for the school to ensure they can handle an emergency situation with correct meds. It is a medical need for your daughter. I would complain.

[TheLadyofShalott]

Why on earth should the school pay?
We are not allowed to give any medicine that hasn't been prescribed by a doctor - I just checked & we have had 62 requests for us to administer medicine so far this year (since September) - if we had to pay the parents £23 each time, in a full year that'd be about £2000.

[tiggerlovestobounce]

Do the school need a doctors note? Is there any guidance that says that it is required? If there is then I think the parent would have a good arguement not to pay.

[diedandgonetodevon]

Thats normal here. A doctors note is £25.

[TheLadyofShalott]

tigger - yes there is guidance - the Department of Educations guidance 'Managing Medicines in Schools and Early Years Settings' says

"Schools and settings should only accept medicines that have been prescribed by a doctor, dentist, nurse prescriber or pharmacist prescriber."

So it's not the school being awkward, they are following the correct procedure.

[tiggerlovestobounce]

But does it say they need a doctors note? Thats different from a prescription.

[TheLadyofShalott]

Well, at our school we would normally accept a medicine with a prescription label with the child's name on as 'having been prescribed', but if it's just a bottle of Piriton from the chemist (which is what one of our nut-allergy children has) then they would need a note from the doctor to say they need it.

I don't think the doctors round here charge anything like £23 though, or I'm sure I'd have heard the complaints...

[tiggerlovestobounce]

So at your school then it would be OK for the parent to just ask the GP to prescribe the piriton?

[TheLadyofShalott]

Yes, that'd be fine. Normally of course you wouldn't want them to because I'd guess the prescription charge is probably more than a bottle of Piriton, but it would be less than £23!

But some doctors won't prescribe proprietary medicines anyway.