I shouldn't be getting free prescriptions

[ssd]

because I live in Scotland

I work, so does dh

we have a combined income of £25k

we don't need a regular prescription every week

where I pick up my prescriptions, people I know who are lawyers, accountants, business owners all pick them up free, its across the board and not means tested

its all wrong, when people in England pay over £8 for theirs

it should be means tested, that and the winter fuel allowance , probably loads more I cant think of just now

I really don't get why the line about means-testing being expensive to do is always used. Higher-rate taxpayer? No free prescription. On benefits? Free prescription. Some mix in between? All the data is there to decide whether you've the means or not.

the UK government is to blame but they were voted for by the English

more accurately, by some people in England (and indeed in Wales and Scotland). There are a lot of people in England who are not "English". Just as there are for example around half a million people in Scotland who are "English".

Anyway I believe the prescription anomaly pre-dates the current government and the Coalition government when we had a government that more accurately reflected the votes of the electorate across Britain (not so much NI) although I may be wrong.

I struggle a bit with localism. I understand why people want regional/local autonomy. But it leads to postcode lotteries like this. I would much prefer everyone in the country to get the same deal. So I guess I am a bit of a centralist at heart.

My partner gets free prescriptions because he's thyroid deficient. This applies to all medication, not just his thyroid meds. He was later diagnosed with Crohn's Disease so that meant all his meds for that were free as well, whilst other people with IBD have to pay. There's no logic to it at all.

Rhoda you are so right about the waste. I recently started to clear out my dad's flat as he has moved into a care home and there was a mountain of various prescription drugs, some dating from 2008! Some were OTC drugs but he'd got them on prescription because he didn't have to pay for them. I do think that needs to stop.

Cleaty Obviously you wouldn't have a pre-payment card if you were entitled to free prescriptions, but for those who are not, no-one needs to pay out more than £10 per month.

Given that people on very low incomes are exempt from prescription charges, for almost everyone, it is a trivially small cost that is hardly worth worrying about.

Basic bank accounts that allow direct debits are available to everyone who wants one. How do people get their wages or benefits paid without one?

www.moneyadviceservice.org.uk/en/articles/basic-bank-accounts

You can only do so much for people who won't help themselves by signing up to basic services.

I live in England and have to pay for eye medication that I will need for the rest of my life to stop me going blind. It does seem unfair to me that people with long term conditions are forced to pay. Oh well, at least they are still heavily subsidised...

Prescriptions in Wales are also free whilst their ambulance service is in dire straits. It's not particularly unusual for waits of 10/15 minutes for 999 calls to be answered, let alone for a vehicle to be despatched.

I take three meds and I do find £8 steep but luckily all the GPs I've come across since taking them have been lovely and prescribed me a lot in one go. Sometimes with ADs over six months' worth which I think is actually not allowed. Worth asking for.

I am so grateful that we can get the pill & things like the IUD free - amazing.

French prescription system pretty good & generous but a faff esp. if you also have private insurance on top.
However their GP visits can be ruinously expensive (for poor students like me anyway!) - I received treatment from a GP which would have totalled well over 200 euro if he hadn't been an absolute angel in disguise & done it all for free (didn't accept EHIC, neither did many of those I called when I got ill).

A lot of us are up in arms in England you know OP. Or do you think we are all just blithely accepting it all?

Rhoda that happens all the time, I am a community nurse and most of the patients I see have loads of drugs stashed away in various places, the same happens with dressings. If something is free and you put no value on it then it is open to abuse.

I agree it's unfair. The thing is, I'm not sure what can be done about it?

Exactly, Boredofusername.

Why are all medications free for those who don't have to pay? In the pil's cache of stuff were hundreds of boxes of paracetamol. You can buy paracetamol for 15p in some shops. Also masses of plasters in Boots boxes. Plasters? On prescription? The pil were very well off. They could just about have managed the odd 15p for a headache pill.

I have read about people who get free prescriptions going to the GP with every single crappy ailment in order to get the stuff free - eg head lice treatment and sun cream.

I definitely think that "free prescriptions" should only apply to a certain level of drug and above.

The repeat prescription direct debit was not a "trivial" amount, good for you if you have a spare ten pounds a month. When I started working I was earning just above the threshold for any type of benefit / help with prescription costs but needed my drugs to live. I was living paycheck to paycheck. When the Scottish gov scrapped the charges I was in a better paying job but remember thinking that was something that would make a real difference to people in my position.

free prescriptions in northern ireland too.

I see people abusing this and would be willing to pay something. before they were free the price had been reduced to a couple of quid per script

but the whole system is abused e.g. getting paracetamol on script as a PP said its a couple of pence in tesco.

Previously i did sign up to the prepaid certificates and was grateful for it as it saved me some money.

Ahem. We had them in Wales first.

But sure, it's only when Scotland's devolved government implement schemes from the Welsh government that the English go nuts.

I get free prescriptions because I need daily thyroid medication. Its seems unbelievable to me that asthmatics and diabetics also do not get free meds for their condition.

I tend to forget to mention I get free prescriptions when I need any other non-thyroid medication as I feel so guilty.

same as you Alasalas I get all mine free due to having one condition - however I rarely get medication from the GP anyway - so it's just my pills and my contraception - which don't add up to much - and I work and pay tax and NI so I don't think it's 'free' anyway.

One of the downsize in cost of free prescriptions is doctors hours, coming from an area of poverty many of my family would visit the doctor for cheap medication because it is free and when you have little everything counts, whereas those working or not entitled would visit the pharmacy. My family in Scotland do visit the doctor much more regular than they did when the worked and lived south of the border by their own admission.

I live in England and have to pay for eye medication that I will need for the rest of my life to stop me going blind. It does seem unfair to me that people with long term conditions are forced to pay. Oh well, at least they are still heavily subsidised...

Mouse - I have the opposite situation - I'm moderately hypothyroid and as this is on the "exempt list" all my medication is free. I (for now anyway) choose to pay for the medication - it's something like £7.50 a prescription. I think the exempt list is due a review as to what's included or excluded. The current list is completely arbitrary.

A relative of mine is medication controlled diabetic and all her meds are free. She goes to the GP for OTC meds so they are free.
Why should she be exempt yet my husband who is asthmatic isn't, or my medication for severe pain isn't?
My GP surgery now refuse to give prescriptions for paracetamol which is a pain as I used to get boxes of 100, so now I have to remember to pick up a couple of packs of 16 each time I'm at the supermarket.

The exemption criteria for certain illnesses is nuts and mostly seems to be for historical reasons. When I was taking four different drugs for my mental health, two different drugs for my asthma, and four different drugs for my migraines, I paid for everything (well, I got a prepayment card). This time last year, the only drug I needed was one very cheap tablet a day for my diabetes, but just needing that one tablet a day means all my prescriptions are now free. Diabetes is on the list because historically many diabetics needed insulin to keep them alive. But I mostly control mine with diet and exercise - I could get along without the daily tablet okay.

Yes the UK government is to blame but they were voted for by the English so they have the government they voted for and clearly want.

ODFOD, I don't recall the conservatives winning with 100% of the vote. There are many people who are deeply unhappy with the current government and suffer because of prescription costs/uni fees. It's incredibly unfair.

Maybe only medication for the exempt condition should be free, but if the person needs antibiotics for a dental infection for example, they should pay, unless they qualify for free prescriptions via another route, eg age?

Agree that the list of conditions that allow exemption should be reviewed. It's very old and I think it was drawn up a time when some conditions on the list were severely life limiting, but are now well controlled by modern medication.

Rand, you can get a box of 96 from the pharmacist, and you can buy two boxes of 16 at a time of the shelf.