High Peak Labour calls for Free Prescriptions
High Peak Labour Party has called on the Government to make all NHS prescriptions free of charge. At present more than 8 out of ten medications are free as they are prescribed for pensioners and children, as well as nursing mothers and people on certain benefits or with certain long term medical conditions.
Alan Barrow, Chair of High Peak Labour, said “We should take the opportunity presented by the Government’s review of prescription charges for long term conditions to press for a free service, based entirely on people’s need for medication.”
There are many anomalies in the current prescription system, members pointed out. Some drugs are available cheaper over the counter than on prescription. Some conditions, such as cystic fibrosis, clearly merit free prescriptions but are not on the list because at the time of the last review very few sufferers lived to adulthood. There is still scope to reduce over-prescribing by some doctors.
Even though some drug costs in the NHS are falling, thanks to a greater use of generic prescribing of certain drugs, some are rising. MP Tom Levitt pointed out that a new cancer drug had been approved on the condition that, at a cost of £36,000 a year to the NHS per patient, the manufacturers would meet the cost of any use of it beyond two years. This was not unreasonable, he said.
Mr Levitt also reminded the Party’s monthly meeting that drugs for cancer patients will be free on prescription from April 1, as Gordon Brown announced at the Labour Party conference. Patients should collect a registration form for free prescriptions now from their GP or oncology clinic. The form must be countersigned by the patient’s GP, hospital doctor or service doctor.