To think that government cutbacks shouldn't start affecting medicine/prescriptions for children?!

[StaM]

My child has had a throat infection since Friday. I've been giving her Calpol over the weekend; it's had little affect whatsoever.

So today i popped into my local GP and asked at reception for a prescription. The receptionist said my dd might not get one because of all the cutbacks. She then said i might be lucky because Dr. Stuart (made up name) is in, and he's normally good with prescriptions.

I honestly thought she was joking.

Is this a new thing. Are the NHS seriously making cuts in prescriptions for children now?

Totally disgusting.

also metanium and sudocream

Spacers for asthmatic DC's to use with their inhalers

Now THAT is disgusting considering it is advised that everyone who uses inhalers uses a spacer and for children it is impossible to get it into them without.

I wonder how they would have expected DS at 6 months (which he was when he started on inhalers) to use one without a spacer? Thankfully our PCT is sensible and DS has 4 spacers, one for each location a inhaler is stored

I agree about the rude post, it was very rude.
It isn't ignorance, most people here have said that their surgeries don't give antibiotics without seeing the patient, maybe some practices run differently but it isn't ignorance. My grandma had COPD which meant chest infections every few weeks, at most she'd go a month or 2 without one, each time she got one she would end up in hospital fighting for her life. She'd just recover and then the same would happen again. Even with a life threatening illness like that our gp would only prescribe antibiotics after seeing her (would come to the house as she was house bound). So does that make me ignorant because my experience is that they want to see you before giving you a prescription?

Things like calpol and sudocreme shouldn't be routinly prescribed IMO as they are a regular thing that can easily and cheaply be purchased.

That said if a parent really can't afford it then it should be prescribed.

Sirzy - DS2 uses spacers, and needs at least 3 at all times, one at my house, one at his dads house and one at school.

Whenever they need replacing I have to pay for them. They only last about 6 months to a year with daily use, he has his inhalers every 4 hours, day and night.

They aren't cheap, either - £10 each time!

He SAT on one and cracked it last month, and a week later, the school told me his one there needed replacing too! Grrrr!

Just actually shut up with your ignorance.

That's extremely rude. I live in Scotland where all prescriptions are free and you'd still need to have an appt with a gp to be prescribed anti-bs. That's not ignorance, it's the way my practice works. I suspect OP's practice is moving the same way.

Just use the Minor Ailments Service at your local pharmacy. Much quicker than the GP.

It's the hypoallergenic formula for my DS3 that REALLY bugs me - any other dairy substitutes could kill him, other than Karo coconut milk which he refuses because the texture is odd, and Oatly, which I can't really use because of cross contamination of gluten for my coeliac DS1 if DS3 spills it!

So without the hypoallergenic formula, he has no milk replacement.

I spend £15-£18 a week on it, and I DON'T have that money - my other DC's are eating less so I can buy it. It's bloody ridiculous, when if I gave him a beaker of cows milk it would KILL HIM.

The wrist strapping thing is bugging me too, I have Hypermobility syndrome, and I have ALWAYS had them prescribed when my old ones wear out. And as they will no longer do it, I don't have them as I can't afford to, so my wrists are back to dislocating 20-30 times a day.

Stargirl - our pharmacies won't prescribe anything off that list either!

The only thing I've had prescribed without seeing the doctor first is sudocrem. And I'd've just bought a tub (quicker and easier) but the nursery insisted that it had to have a prescription label on it.

That's shocking! I thought they HAD to give everything that was on the list from the NHS website.

I am angry on your behalf couthy! Every time DS has been in hopsital we have been sent home with a new spacer and every check up they ask if we need more. I always assumed that was standard. Although they aren't medication themselves they are needed to take medication.

As for the formula, that is just rediculous how can anyone be expected to find that sort of money each month!

Is there anyway you can buy the strapping you need online cheaper?

I can't believe u can't get your formula :( the risks to babies without it are so high. It will lead to dilution- which is lethal as all the nutrients r not in the right amounts.or people are ginna get dodgy supplies trying to track it down cheap on Internet. Or even prescription swapping from other parents with half empty tins lying around. Can't believe they expect anyone to pay up to £30 per 900 g tub that's impossible for someone on benefits and would be a struggl for even those who are in employment. Madness :(

Couthy
I think the problem is that supplying some of these items like gluten free food was costing so far in excess of the value of the product due to NHS admin costs etc that it was no longer economic.

What would have made sense to me is if they had assisted those parents that had previously been receiving the products free of charge e.g. up to the value of the product, so they were no worse off.

My Gp's normally give out prescriptions without seeing patients, if symptoms are told to receptionist over the phone.

Bloody hell, I'd be changing GP.

I got a script (not a repeat but something I'd had before) ONCE because they were two doctors down so couldn't give me an appointment.

Tonsilitis can be bacterial or viral, OP can you tell the difference by looking?

They always say "it's what your DLA is for, additional expenses incurred by your disability"

Except that doesn't work when they take away your DLA but not your disability!

My GP is refusing to titrate my dose of epilepsy meds up despite the fact that my current dose is not controlling my seizures. Because of my own allergies, I am on quite an expensive anti-convulsants that my body can tolerate. But because it is expensive, they don't want to pay for the extra 56 tablets a month that has been recommended to them in a telephone consultation with my Neuro...

I had a chest infection for 5 weeks, the GP fobbed me off for 3 weeks, then printed out a prescription for penicillin. When I reminded him I was anaphylactic to penicillin, Amoxycillin and erythromycin, he told me I didn't need ab's. mostly because the doxycycline I needed was many times more expensive.

A week later I could barely breathe, and he ended up having to give me the doxycycline at twice the dose for twice as long as he would have had to had he done it when I asked a week previously!

Couthy you seem to be incredibly unfortunate in the HCPs you have.

I would change to a different surgery. I get spacers, Dermol, Oilatum and so on prescribed for my boys who are asthmatic and have eczema.

GPs really don't seem to think outside the box sometimes, mine refused to prescribe an inhaler he was put on by a respiritory consultant because he was too young to have it. It took me a week and a phone call to his consultant for me to get it sorted!

Problem is that they haven't replaced that funding with anything else. When I include GF food for DS1, and dairy, soy, nut free food for DS3 as well as his formula in my shopping bill, I'm lucky to get my food shopping to creep in under £200 for the week.

I get £217 a week CTC for the DC's, and am currently getting just £34 a week Income Support because I had to take out a Social Fund loan to replace his nebuliser because his old one broke and there was a 6 month waiting list for a new one on the NHS. For an essential piece of equipment that my DS2 needs in order to live outside of a hospital ward.

No DLA for him, so I had no choice.

I'm already living £33 a week BELOW what the government states is the minimum needed to live off with 4 DC's due to the loan, and then my shopping bill is around £60 a week dearer to pay for GF food for DS1 and DS3's hypoallergenic formula and dairy, soy, nut free food.

If it wasn't for my Ex bankrupting himself to pay well over the odds on maintenance, the DC's wouldn't be getting to school as the bus fares (no, I can't get them free. Even my local MP has tried 5 times in the last 8 years. My DS2 is not disabled enough, apparently. His Physio, OT and Paed would agree to disagree...) are £42 a week for me, DS1 and DS2 together!

I'm haemorrhaging money, I am about £100 short each and every week now!

Couthy, worth seeing if your consultant will put a rocket up them. My brotger's GP initially refused to prescribe the dose of thyroxine recommended by his oncologist (apparently because his thyroid was removed after cancer he needs a higher than normal dose) and the oncologist wrote a real stinker of a letter to the practice after which the higher dose prescription magically appeared.

It seems to be a postcode lottery yet again. My DD has long term health conditions. We still get everything she needs on prescription. Even Paracetemol and Ibuprofen have to be on prescription as she needs it in school and other care settings and they won't give any medication unless it has a pharmacy label on with her name and the exact dose. There have been cutbacks, but so far we have not been refused anything she has needed. They have tried to go for cheaper products in some cases - but where the cheaper ones are not suitable for her, we continue to get the more expensive option. I have no objections to having generic versions of medicine if it does the same job as the more expensive option. I would never pay more than a few pence for a box of paracetemol for my own use from the supermarket!

Common sense needs to prevail here and not blanket policies/bans on specific products for everyone.

We too have access to anti biotics when needed for DD. It makes financial sense - if we get them into her sooner rather than later, she is less likely to end up in hospital - which would cost a great deal more. If the OPs DC has recurring tonsillitis then she could potentially end up dehydrated if she is unable to swallow - that will require a hospital admission.

I agree that anti biotics are often over used/prescribed but are necessary in a recurring know condition.

sashh
Chronic tonsillitis is more likely to be bacterial than viral. The tonsils become infected and never completely clear. So if a child has two bouts of tonsillitis 6 months apart you couldn't guess if it was bacterial or viral. If, on the other hand, it was like DS2 where within 1-2 weeks of finishing a course of AB he was starting to go downhill towards his next bout cue very high fever, swollen lymph nodes, vomiting etc it was reasonably probable that his attack was bacterial not viral, that's why the GP would sometimes prescribe without seeing him.

It's not the surgery - it's the PCT. It's basically bankrupt, and is only managing to continue to function at all by limiting things in this way.

The hospital kitchens are so overloaded because they were fitted in 1963 yet the Hospital has more than tripled in size in that time, that at least once a week they are prepping food in the dark because the fuses have been tripped again.

(My ex has worked there for the last 5 years)

They refused to give my ex a 22p an hour pay rise, yet because he has now refused to do chef ding for them unless they do, they are paying agency staff £13 an hour rather than give him 22p extra an hour (and we are talking he has worked as a chef from leaving college until a redundancy 5 years ago when he took a kitchen porter job at a huge drop in income just to have a job) for the use of his skills. His wage would STILL have been under £8 an hour, despite 19 years experience in the Chef trade.

Gross mismanagement. The wastage that goes on when he caters for their 'functions' is horrifying.

Gross mismanagement is causing this, and I would have to travel 30 miles+ to get to a GP practice outside my PCT area. When I don't drive. Because of my epilepsy. Which they won't properly treat because of the expense...

They won't take her tonsils out. Am i supposed to just let her suffer from tonsillitis then with no antibiotics?

Sadly I had this experience with my DD. in the end I paid for a private consultant to see her. He wrote a rather strongly worded letter to my GP practice who immediately referred her to NHS ENT. She saw a consultant 2 weeks later and within 6 weeks had her tonsils out.

18 months later and we have not had a single infection.

It's really hard with all the cutbacks. I see your child is better now which is good. I was told to ring and make an appointment as soon as the initial symptoms flared up.

DS3's dietician HAS written a stinker of a letter to them, as has his allergist, AND my HV, who has explained that it is impossible for me to continue to pay for the hypoallergenic formula at a cost of £60 a month when I'm living so far below the poverty level due to a loan taken out to buy essential medical equipment...