GP refusing to give private prescription

[overun]

My husband visited the GP today and was prescribed 2 items. He explained how he was no longer allowed to give a private prescription as it was seen as defrauding the NHS! My husband pays a ridiculous amount of tax so why should he be penalised again? Anyone else had this happen?

Depending on how often your DH takes the meds, the price of the private consultation may be offset by the cost of the private prescription. Eg if he currently pays £8.60 a week and would pay 12p per week privately, the annual cost would be £447.20 on the NHS and £6.24 privately. Private consultants can write a prescription for a year, so he’d only need one private appointment costing at most £200. So using those figures he’d be £240 better off going privately. Obviously I don’t know how often he needs to pay the prescription charge, but it’s quite possible he could save money by doing this.

But frankly our DH doesn’t know how lucky he he is. I currently pay approx £70 a month for a private prescription because my NHS doctor refused to take my symptoms seriously and wouldn’t send me for the tests to diagnose my condition. I had no choice but to go private. Unfortunately before I did that I spent some time begging the NHS for tests to no avail, and the delay in treatment (2 surgeries followed by drug treatment) means I have lifelong pain and infertility. I paid my taxes too.

However I’m not aware of a separate dispensing charge, though maybe it is just included in the price. I do get my meds at a slightly cheaper price if I buy more at once though (so £70 per month instead of £75 if I buy 6 months at a time).

Private GPs do sometimes issue repeat prescriptions where the chemist stamps it and gives it back to you. In this case one private consultation would be worth it.
Up thread a poster said that you could only get your NHS prescription if you had been referred by the NHS. IME this is not accurate. 2 members of my family get NHS prescriptions following private consultations which were self referred or private GP referred. The consultants wrote to the NHS GP and the prescriptions were set up on the NHS system. I get psoriasis ointment prescribed by a private dermatologist on the NHS on a repeat.
If OTC is cheaper than prescription GPs always just write a note of what you should get.