To think the NHS should tell us the cost of medication

[glenthebattleostrich]

Just been talking to / whining at DH about how I need to order a new inhalor before Christmas but my app won't let me before 25 Dec. Then got onto the cost of prescriptions and wasted medication (I know, bet you wish you were here!)

Out of interest I googled the cost of my inhalor and the one my doctor tried to switch me too (can't use dry powder as it makes my asthma worse for some reason).

My symbicort costs about £38 and my salbutamol £12 to buy. Suddenly i feel better about prescription charges (still annoying that some parts of the UK don't pay or certain conditions get all meds free others dont, bit that's a different thread).

Anyways, after all that waffle, AIBU to think we should be told how much it would cost us to buy medication? I'd be more appreciative of the savings / consider how much I need it and would be less likely to waste medication.

Can I go back to the pharmacy even after I got them last week?

I'd walk away feeling awful. Seeing it all totted up on my prescription would honestly put me off and make me feel terribly guilty.

And ok, it may work on the tiny minority of people who abuse the NHS and waste medication (but probably not, because if they don't care now...), but in general it would just be an arsey thing to do to those who just can't not take it.

Cancer meds.
Insulin.
Asthma meds.
Heart meds.
Anti-depressants.

I just had a quick google, and with the new addition to my monthly prescription (and more to come), I am costing the NHS approximately £250 a month.
Yeah, that makes me feel fucking wonderful.

As has been pointed out, we pay for the NHS via taxes so it is sad that people would feel a burden, but I do take that point on board.

Completely agree re the paracetamol and other similar medication that is cheap to buy. A friend of mine thinks it's marvelous that she can get her kids calpol (or generic alternative) from the gp and not have to pay. She's a bloody head teacher and her husband is head of dept at his company so definitely not so short of money they can't afford a couple of quid for calpol!

I don't know why asthma isn't included in the free prescriptions, and I do find it frustrating that my DM wastes a small fortune in medication because 'its free so it doesn't matter' as she has an interactive thyroid. Not her thyroid meds but other bits she may be prescribed IYSWIM.

Perhaps explaining the cost savings when trying alternative medication and if a patient requested branded meds as opposed generic would be a better option.

I actually worked it out once and my dcs prescriptions are about £4000 a month 😳
So so grateful for the NHS

I agree with you, OP. I'm on shit loads of meds. Knowing they cost a lot doesn't make me feel bad about myself, far from it.
There's so much waste of meds that I think people might be more careful if they knew how much their drugs were actually costing.

Do people really request certain brands of medication? Why the fuck do they care?

Have an injection every two weeks that costs £250 each.
Plus approx 20 tablets a day, liquid morphine and a fentanyl patch, no idea how much they cost.

Alice put it out of your mind. You have absolutely nothing to be ashamed of.

No my GP usually tells me if something can be cheaper generically. Like ranitidine or hay fever tablets.

Alice when you add in my regular antibiotics and top up inhaler, not to mention my DDs awful eczema we probably don't 'cost' much less than that.

I'm immensely grateful that we have the NHS and I think that was kind of my (possibily poorly made) point. That perhaps if we focused on what was good, cut out the unnecessary bits and explained to people that actually there is more of a cost than ypu see their might be less complaining about the prescription charge and people might think twice about wasting the resources we have. It certainly wasn't intended as a stick to beat anyone with and I'm sorry if this has made you feel bad.

I do Mavis, because certain brands / types don't agree with me so are wasted.

YANBU. We all have a responsibility to be well informed about the cost of our healthcare. Responsible behaviour includes not wasting resources AND using resources when we need them.

No one should feel bad!
I think it's eye opening though

An NHS spreadsheet did the rounds a year or two back. Detailing the actual cost of prescription medication, was hundreds of pages. Quite sobering to read one of my meds costs £240 a month. Easy to see why the NHS struggles.

I think that was my thinking Monochrome. I take my inhalor partly because it stops the trips to A&E and cuts down on the complications that come with asthma. My Gp called me very responsible

I think we should know, and I do know for the medications i take regularly.

What I think should definitely stop happening is the NHS paying over inflated prices for medications - particularly when we are paying more than pharmaceuticals charge other countries (France, Germany).

WHY ARE WE WASTING MONEY LIKE THIS??

I also think they need to stop prescribing medication that is over priced (ie paracetemol) - instead of funding this at a crazy cost, there should be easy access points for patients who can't afford it on prescription to get the cost price variety without prescription and without cost.

I have a prescription prepayment card and it costs around £9.50 a month. Otherwise I am on five different medications which would cost nearly half that on a monthly basis.

I recently had an appointment and the day before I got a text which said that it costs the NHS £165.

Since September I have had: one ambulance visit, three days on full life support including intubation, dialysis, fluids, intravenous antibiotics, angiogram, then another two weeks in hospital including a heart MRI, echo scan, chest X-ray multiple ECG's and numerous other medications. Since then I've had three ECG's another chest X-ray, intravenous fluids and anti sickness medication. And I'm sure there's more I've forgotten. Do I feel guilty? No actually I don't. But I do feel eternally grateful that I am still alive, and that we have a system in the UK which, while easy to criticise, is responsible for the fact that I am here, and yet we take it for granted.

Alice I'm costing more than that per month - but it's a lot cheap than several HDU admissions to hospital.

OP I have both of those too, I didn't know Symbicort was that much.
I've also been warned about under using those meds though...I am the person who frets about waste of nhs time and money so I don't know what I think.

I sort of agree.

I'm on injections just now that the pharmacist helpfully told me cost the NHS hundreds of pounds (justifying why they need ordered in and are not kept as a matter of routine). I wasn't sure whether I should apologise and feel I can't complain about side effects as I'm not paying for them .

I buy my own paracetamol, ibuprofen but presently I'm on a combination of:

Monthly decapeptyl
Nightly Fionella
Cocodamol 8/500, 15/500, 30/500
Diclofenac
Cyclizine
Ponstan
Tranexamic Acid
dihydrocodeine
Laxido
Senna

I hate being on so much and dread to think of the cost of all the stuff I need , operations, appointments etc :(

And I don't think over the counter meds like paracetamol should be prescribed except if they're needed in higher strength doses.

Yes to this. My DD was prescribed an OTC cream, and I nearly argued the point with the doctor - we can afford to buy it - but wasn't sure if I should have? Maybe I should have said something.

My dh is type 1 diabetic and we are very grateful for the free medication. To be faced with the question of medicine vs groceries would be horrible.

AliceInUnderpants please stop feeling guilty awkward etc re you meds what to you think the mumsnet crew would want you to do give up taking anything?.

We all cost the HNS something over time and over time we all pay taxes in one way or many!

I'm in the US, and once a year I get a statement from our medical insurers summarising our prescriptions, how much we spent (our co-pay for most generic medicines is $12, so roughly similar to the NHS England prescription charge) along with the actual cost of the medicine.

It has been a real eye-opener, actually - the one that I might have guessed would be expensive wasn't too bad, but one tube of something else cost well over $100.

Because we pay insurance (and hundreds each month!) I don't feel bad at all about this. I think we should all have a better understanding of the true costs of the medical systems we are in

Surely we should be questioning the big pharma making these drugs? They're the ones profiting after all.