To think blanket free prescriptions for over 60s NEED to end?

[Idratherbepaddleboarding]

I know this will be controversial but I popped to the doctors in my lunch break to collect my prescription and joined a longish queue. Everyone in front of me was over 60 and collecting huge bags of medications and I was the only one paying for any of it.

I don’t dispute that I should have to pay but often I can’t afford it which has led to me having to miss days of my medication, leaving me feeling very emotional and at times suicidal (medication is for depression). Perhaps if everyone who has over a certain income had to pay, they’d be able to lower the prescription charge for everyone or be able to afford the pay rises they say they can’t afford for nurses and junior doctors.

The killer was that every single one of the people in front of me got back into massive, brand new SUVs, one couple into a Range Rover and another into a Jaguar. If they can afford to own (and run!) cars like that, paying for a prescription would be a drop in the ocean for them. AIBU to think that free prescriptions should be limited to those in pension credit just like Universal Credit?

When DH’s grandad died, his mum and auntie shared out his collection of prescription paracetamol and ibuprofen (I know they should be returned to the pharmacy but they’d only have been destroyed and both are ex nurses so I guess they know what they’re doing). I’m not joking, there were boxes and boxes of the stuff, we didn’t buy painkillers for years and these will have cost the NHS a lot more than they would from the supermarket and weren’t even taken by the person that they were intended for! Surely paracetamol and ibuprofen should not be available on the NHS at all?

I really don’t want to bash the over 60s and it wouldn’t be a vote winner for politicians but surely we can’t afford to keep free prescriptions for those that can afford them?

Utter shit.

Home responsibilities protection lasted for 32 years between 1978 and 2010 where mothers claiming child benefit for children under 16 automatically got "credits" without paying anything.

https://www.gov.uk/home-responsibilities-protection-hrp#:~:text=Any%20HRP%20you%20had%20before,go%20towards%20your%20State%20Pension.

So for people with large age gaps between their children could pretty easily get 20+ years of credits towards state pension without actually paying any NIC. If they then got a relatively low paid part time job (over the first NIC threshold but under the next), they'd get NIC credits for those years too without paying any NIC!

I'm entitled to free prescriptions as I have an under active thyroid. I actually can't understand why other medications apart from the thyroxine are free too and would be happy to pay.

Those getting free prescriptions that feel they can afford to pay, why do say no when you pharmacy staff ask if you pay when they hand the medication over? You could always say yes and pay for them.

But is it shitter for the rich if they can afford it? Surely there should be some means testing rather than simple age cut-off which, like the pension, will start to get later and later.

OP YANBU. But please find a way to get help with prescriptions. Our GP/chemist has a flat annual rate which is far cheaper if you are on long term meds. Could you look into this?

It's depressing how many people can't see the system and costs beyond handing over cash per transaction.

The original exemptions were made on a cost-benefit basis and tended to be medications with preventative effects but no obvious instant effects. When paid for people tend to stretch out their prescription or hold off getting it until they were ill, which is more expensive long term.

Then the argument that one condition shouldn't make everything free. Who is going to judge whether their diabetes is a contributing factor to the rash/infection? Someone medically trained reviewing each purchase - really, you think that system is cheaper?

The admin costs in Scotland were more than the money taken in from the 10% paying for prescriptions. That's even before you consider all the other chronic conditions who feel their medication should be free and legal costs involved and the ball-ache involved in that.

It's not recent at all, look at the link I posted above, home responsibilities protection started in 1978 - that's 45 years ago!

If England had the same level of funding as Wales and Scotland maybe prescriptions could be free/reduced. Didn't notice after '97 any movement towards free prescriptions under St Tony either.

However, I would support a drug review in every older patient regularly. The disjointed nature of the medical specialities does mean there's often side effects treated by different doctors and patients taking an insane amount of medication, each prescribed without really considering the others.

You could argue that people should only be allowed a certain number of prescriptions in their lifetime; or only allowed 1 doctors visit a year; or only have 1 child; or only have cars that are over 3 years old.
You have no idea of the personal circumstances of the people in the queue. The prescriptions might not even have been for them! They may have worked so ice they were 14 down the mines so deserve a nice car in their old age.
However, our a society is based on need. Many more people over 60 have a low income than a high income. I’m over 60, get free prescriptions but guess what, I still pay National Insurance and Tax!!! I also drive a new car. Which I change every 3 years. My old car them becomes available to someone who perhaps cant afford top buy a new car.
When I was under 60, in very good health and only saw my GP once every blue moon, I didnt mind that there were some people who maybe visited every week, had lots of free prescriptions and maybe drove a decent car!

I am sorry to hear about your depression and your struggle to sometimes pay for your prescription. Just wanted to say that I am retired and do not have a car at all, nor do several of my friends who are also retired so you really are making a sweeping generalisation about older people, really we are just as different from each other as all other groups of people. Some of use are wealthy, some managing ok and others are on their uppers. Some of us are lovely, kind, tolerant, helpful, some of us are nasty small-minded horrors, and I am guessing that the same descriptors apply to many people regardless of their chronological age. I live in a poor area and the only people I have seen in a Jaguar is the owner of a really dodgy off licence and as for the SUVs, they tend to be the vehicle of choice for the local drug dealers!

We need to start paying for the NHS, full stop

No doubt we will be soon enough, the NHS is on its last legs and the government aren't doing anything to address it.

At the end of the day, I'd far rather the richest 10% or so of pensioners not being eligible for freebies, if it meant state pension age didn't keep having to be increased. I'd rather people would still be able to "retire" at 65 paid for by the richest 10% having to pay for prescriptions, bus passes and foregoing their state pension benefits. We can't afford everything, something has to give, and it's not fair that the poorer 90% have to work longer and longer to reach state retirement age.

What about pre-payment certificates for the under 18s too or is it just the over 60s you're blaming?

Why just people over 60? There are a lot of rich families who could pay for their kids' prescriptions, as well as a lot of others who get theirs free, particularly people in Wales and Scotland. YABVU.

Just to balance out your age-related stereotypes - I'm over 60 and I take one tablet a day for high blood pressure so when I go to the pharmacy I don't collect a 'huge bag of medication'. My husband, who is older than me, isn't on any regular medication. We drive a slightly beaten up Honda Jazz. None of my friends (all over 60) drive a Jaguar, a BMW or a Range Rover!

You can get a pre payment certificate for prescriptions it’s £11 a month for 10 months and covers your NHS prescriptions for the year. I think there’s a link to it on the first page of responses to this post.

For every one that got back in to his Range Rover, they’ll be others living in squalor. The man climbing in to the RR will have been paying in to the communal pot since he left school at 15, his contribution will far outweigh someone in their thirties. Cut the oldies some slack.

Everyone should have be having an annual review already.

This. I am thinking of my own parents. Not well off but not poor. It would have been very difficult for either of them to have afforded all their drugs and I could see them stopping some. For some meds, it is dangerous to do that as they need to be tapered so you could end up with more problems and greater costs. There are reasons they are free for that age group.

I agree!

Pretty impressive to know that the long queue were all over 60 and not paying AND witness them all get into top of the range vehicles despite remaining in the queue.

I didn't know that GP surgeries dispensed medication and took payment for it so I've learnt something new today. I have to go from my GP surgery to the local pharmacy for my prescriptions.

Where on earth do you live where a long line of OAPs that are all on a huge cocktail of medications are driving Range Rovers and Jaguars? (that are parked directly in view of you in the shop so you can watch them walk out one by one and get into these luxury cars?)

Ill take 'things that never happened' please.

But I will point out if the are genuinely disabled then mobility cars are reduced cost because theres limited choice to their necessity (things like hand control adapted, wheelchair accessable etc...) and often have to be bought new and are usually custom made by 'better name' brands but still cost the buyer a lot.

It doesn't mean these people are 'rolling in money' it means they need something that unfortunately is very expensive because the cheaper option isnt availible to them so systems exist to aid them to be able to have things they need (good electric wheelchairs are expensive too but I bet your not jealous of the fact some can't walk).

Why surely? Nobody's actually proved it would even save any money yet, much less explained how we're going to create and staff this means testing system.

Anyone recall the Brexit bus that boasted the legend that the £350 million per week that was apparently paid to the EU could be used to fund the NHS instead? Wonder what happened to that the day we galloped off to the sunlit uplands on the backs of our beautiful unicorns. All those billions!

How do you know their situation, if just over 60 probably still working, paying taxes. And what about disabled people who are not productive and using resources, do you begrudge them?