To think GPs shouldn’t charge for these letters?

[Lostare]

Flying soon (cheap flights and staying with family). I take injectable medication bi-weekly an autoimmune condition. I will be due to take this when I’m away.
I asked my GP for a letter confirming it’s prescribed medication so I can take it through the airport and they’ve requested £55 to give me this.
AIBU to think this is a ridiculous amount? I’m now stuck between not paying it and leaving my medicine at home, risking my condition flaring up, vs paying it and losing half my budget for my holiday!
is this a usual amount?

And why do you think people have to wait for hospital appointments? It's not just a quick letter and it's not just a signature and practice stamp on a form either. With the latter it took at least 3 emails, chasing departments for information, using up GP staff and hospital Secretaries' tme to get the information so the GP can "just sign and stamp a holiday cancellation form"

Do you have a clinical nurse specialist as part of your care team at the hospital? They could advise and probably provide a copy of your hospital prescription or relevant documents.

My son is also on infliximab injections. We went to Canada in July and he had to take his injection with him. He didn't have to go through the GP for a letter.
He has a letter from the prescriber that comes with the injections.

OP did that £60 include travel insurance?

Insurance is probably too expensive with her condition

No where near as expensive as healthcare abroad.

The issue is that even if it does only take 10 minutes to perform a task like this, lots of people want similar things doing. Half a dozen people asking for a letter of some kind that isn't covered by the NHS contract and that's an hour of work that isn't being paid for. Either that's time that should be being spent on NHS work that isn't, or it's the staff (whether clinical or clerical) working in their own time for nothing. I wouldn't say that either is acceptable.
I imagine that if it really was just one person wanting a short letter once in a blue moon most doctors would just do it. But if Google is to be believed, the average GP is responsible for over 2250 patients so I can well believe that they get a lot of requests along these lines and that over a year those 5 -10 minute tasks add up to a substantial amount of time. Whether we like it or not, GP practices are private businesses that have a contract with the NHS to provide certain services but not others. If they choose to provide other services privately it shouldn't impact their NHS work and they are entitled to be paid for any work they do outside of that, just like anyone else would be.
My DS has a rare medical condition and I have had to pay plenty for letters and forms to be filled in over the years but I don't blame the surgery for wanting to be paid for their work. If anything, I reserve my ire for organisations who ask for unnecessary forms or want a new one every year when nothing has changed.

Insurance isn't that bad. As long as everything is declared and your crohns is relatively stable, and you haven't had any hospital admissions, it isn't a huge amount more than anyone else.

It sounds like you think because of this specific condition you feel you should have the letter free. There isn’t a hierarchy of illnesses. I’ve had a very serious illness and when needed letters from the GP or consultants for insurance etc I gladly pay them but maybe I was just glad I was alive and well enough to go on holiday and the amount I just absorbed into the overall cost. Yes insurance was also a bit more but again I didn’t begrudge it.

That’s a bit of a leap and a pretty dim conclusion.
I think I should be entitled to a proof of medication I recieve without paying £55, given pretty much every other piece of medication given in the U.K. comes with proof of prescription without an extra charge.

They are not done manually but patient notes still need to be checked to make sure the information is correct.
Would you be happy of someone with schizophrenia was just given what they asked for and went and assaulted someone?
Thought not, comment on something you actually know the process of.

I am on an injectable biologic and the company that deliver my medication provide the letter at no cost.

You know what medication you receive because you receive it. If you are asking a GP who didn’t prescribe the medication what the medication is, what condition it is for and why you have been given it then the GP is the wrong person as they didn’t prescribe it. They could only write ‘I understand someone else has prescribed this medication but as I am not a specialist I can not comment of why.’

does your medication have a prescription sticker with your name on it?
most people just take it in the original packaging and it has their name on.
my husband takes quite a bit medication for epilepsy, they aren’t very common medications either and takes all of the boxes through.

But it does. Medications should come with the sticker on with your details on the box. Or it comes with a dispatch note if not GP/NHS. It boils down to you are asking a GP to write a letter for medication he hasn’t prescribed then complaining they are charging for this extra service. You say you should have it free because of your long term illness. You asked if people thought it reasonable the GP are charging and they on the other whole do. People have said don’t get the letter, get the drug company to do the letter, get the people who prescribed it to do the letter but you still seem to be arguing about the cost of it? I don’t really understand.