NHS prescription charge

[MrTurtleLikesKisses]

I have had hyperthyroidism for 13 years. I picked up my prescription yesterday and paid the £8.60 prescription charge for my 30 tablets (annoyingly, if I had hypothyroidism, my medication would be free ).
Anyway, it suddenly struck me that £8.60 is a lot for a drug that I know has been around for a long time, so I looked online. Sure enough, it looks like it's available to buy, without a prescription, from abroad for a heck of a lot cheaper than £8.60 for 30.
So, have I been a mug all these years? Should I just buy it online? Or should I suck it up and pay the prescription charge like everyone else?

I've just looked on Chemistdirect and my repeat medications would cost me £4.48 to buy from them
I think you have misunderstood Chemist Direct.

You cannot just buy POM drugs from them without a prescription.

You either need an NHS prescription or a private prescription in order to purchase the POM drugs.

They do have an online doctor service but that only covers a few specific medical conditions.

This is Canada but I inject one of these vials once a week. Thank fuck for the NHS. This stops me getting infections and sepsis

My dc's meds cost us 145 euro a month before he got his Long Term Illness card.

I am on a fb group for parents of children with asthma, the amount some parents are having to pay out over there for even the most basic of inhalers is scary! Even more scary is the amount who are struggling to do so. I dread to think how much it would be costing just to keep ds alive over there!

Sirzy Many of our inhalers are expensive. My Fostair is almost £30 and some of the Seretides are around £60. Those are the cost prices too, to get them on a private prescription would cost at least 50% more again

I agree with whoever, upthread, said there should be a small charge for all prescription items but no government will ever tackle that. We've all seen the outrage about the so-called dementia tax. Anybody who wants the generation who have had the best of the booming economy, plentiful opportunities and good pensions to give up a penny will never get anywhere with it

PersianCatLady no misunderstanding, if you'd read my post to the end you would've seen me say that once I'd paid to post my presciption to them and paid for delivery it would cost me around the same as getting my medication from the usual chemist.

Thanks for all the replies - I am, of course, grateful for the NHS and that my condition has been well managed for thirteen years.

I will not be buying my medication online.

I'll probably chat to the doctor to see if he can do anything. If he can't, at least I'll have asked.

If I really want to save money I can always book an appointment, tell the doctor I'd like to have my thyroid removed (I've been told I can have it done if and when I'm ready) and I'll be on thyroxine. For life. For free. (but I won't)

PersianCatLady no misunderstanding, if you'd read my post to the end you would've seen me say that once I'd paid to post my presciption to them and paid for delivery it would cost me around the same as getting my medication from the usual chemist
I didn't read your thread very well at all did I??

I have found out some things you might be interested in though.

ChemistDirect now do their prescriptions through their partner Pharmacy2U.

Pharmacy2U can get your prescription from your doctor electronically and then deliver it free of charge.

I don't know if this would be cheaper for you but here is the link with the information.

www.chemistdirect.co.uk/online-clinic/prescriptions

Pharmacy2U can get your prescription from your doctor electronically and then deliver it free of charge
But as I have just found out, if you use this service you just have to pay the standard prescription fee if you have an NHS prescription.

The only way to get the POM medicines at the cheaper price is by having a private prescription but it obviously costs money to get one in the first place.

Take your prescription to pharmacist and ask if there is a cheaper alternative. I have long term anaemia and my docs fill prescriptions in house and have for years. Had to speak to a locum at the surgery for my most recent prescription (they check bloods every 3 months to see if still necessary) and was told I still need the tablets, but it is much cheaper to just get them from pharmacy over the counter. He helpfully told me to just take the old box in to make sure I get the right thing. I've been spending £8.60 per month, every month for the last god knows how many years on something I could get for £3.50! From now on I will always ask for the paper prescription and have it filled at the pharmacy. I know it's not a fortune but it's the principle, I was fuming!

Fuming? Because you were paying something towards the cost of your NHS use, a whole five pounds a month?

What a depressing attitude.

"Can you get a private prescription, plus the drugs for less than the £9 a month you're currently paying?"

Would you be willing to pay the private consultation fees and fees for investigations? Or would you want those for free?

I've only ever had private prescriptions from a private gp but is it possible to ask an NHS gp to write a private prescription?

The drugs I used to get on a private prescription used to vary wildly in price from batch to batch.

NHS GP would have to charge you the private price for writing you a private prescription.

It is much cheaper to just get them from pharmacy over the counter
You cannot buy thyroid medicines over the counter as they are POM medicines.

A lot of anemia medicines are P medicines so they can be sold by the pharmacist.

NHS gp to write a private prescription
Depends on the GP but then you have to pay for the private prescription.

My GP charges £25 to countersign a passport application so I would expect a private prescription to cost quite a bit.

You can see the NHS price for drugs by looking in the BNF online, which is free to access. It will also help you understand why you will often be given a generic form of a drug rather than the original brand name drug, eg sodium valproate vs Epilim - the effective ingredient will be the same, but the filler may vary. However, the difference in price can be huge.

From now on I will always ask for the paper prescription and have it filled at the pharmacy
If you are going to buy your medicines OTC at the pharmacy then you don't need the paper prescription.

You can just go in there and buy them.

'Pharmacy2U can get your prescription from your doctor electronically and then deliver it free of charge'

Most (if not all) pharmacies can do this - Don't get me started on P2U...

Being able to get a prescription electronically depends on the Doctor being able to send it that way - most can, but some can't (2 out of 50 in the town I work in are still not EPS enabled). At the moment controlled drugs also can't be sent electronically.

Looking at Brand v Generic.

Some drugs that still have a patent will only ever be supplied as a brand - they will still probably be prescribed by generic name.

When a drug comes off patent other manufacturers will start to make generic versions at a much cheaper price - usually a month or two later the Drug Tariff catches up and the price paid to pharmacies drops considerably; at this point we have no choice financially but to supply the generic if the product is prescribed by its generic name.

If the GP prescribes by brand then the patient will still receive the brand, however for most drugs they are sensibly encouraged to prescribe the more cost-effective generic. (Certain drugs should be prescribed by brand as it is important that the patient doesn't switch from one manufacturer to another).

Pharmacies do get deals on certain products which allow us to supply a brand, but these tend to be fast-moving products such as ventolin.

There are also certain brands that are cheaper than the DT price (known as branded generics), so CCGs will make the choice to save money locally by recommending that these products are prescribed - Zapain for Co-Codamol for example - this is where the funding formula starts to get very complicated.

One of the drugs I take costs £5.60 for a pack of 28.

The other drug I take costs £12.77 for one single tablet and a pack of 8 tablets is nearly £100.

The flat rate prescription charge means I pay more than the drug costs for one but make a massive saving for the other one.

I have a ppc for £104 a year: so very cost effective.

Buy the drugs from.abroad op, you'll get your moneys worth from the nhs when they have to.fix you up after taking counterfeit drugs.

Our CCG policy is generic prescriptions only, 28 day prescribing, no gluten free products, no paracetamol on prescription, in fact they've restricted all otc drugs and you have to buy them and they've reduced the list of emollients to just 5 brands.
There have been a lot of complaints in my pharmacy over the last year, they've stopped a lot of over prescribing with the policy though.

Bloody hell, the things you learn on MN. Just started on levothyroxine for hypothyroidism. I had no idea I could get it for free (I haven't actually seen a doctor in person, it's all been diagnosed via phone appointments). I guess over the next twenty years the prescriptions would really add up otherwise.

I was already aware that for some patients, the £8.60 prescription charge would be a drop in the ocean compared to the cost price of the drug.
However, I suspected that this was not the case for my medication and that it was available cheaper elsewhere.
It looks like this isn't the case.
I am aware that for some patients who need expensive medication, or need several different drugs, the pre-payment cards work out really well. I only wondered if my own situation was different.

Feralcat if OP is paying £8.60 per month that's £103.20 per year. Why would she pay £104 for a 12 month certificate?!?!?

Because there are 13 sets of 4 weeks in a year - so 13 items which is £111.80