Prescription charges and you

What would you tell the minister responsible for prescription drug charges if you were to meet her one day?

We want to know, as Asthma UK will be meeting Dawn Primarolo, the Minister of State for Public Health, after the summer break (depending of course on any ministerial re-shuffle, which is also expected after the holidays).

I have written about this subject before and know it brings out strong opinions. The Government has promised to review the policy, which currently forces people with asthma to pay for their medicine, when people with other long-term conditions like diabetes get them free.

We are especially interested in knowing:

• Do you have trouble affording your medicines? If so, does it force you to buy one and not another? Does it affect your use of medicines and your health?
• What improvements do you think should be made? Clearly, we want prescriptions to be free to all those with asthma - but we might have to get there in steps. Would free prescriptions for those in Higher Education be an improvement? Should they be free to those on Housing Benefit?
• The Government lets people buy an annual ‘season ticket’ for prescriptions. If you pay £102.50 for 12 months, all your prescription costs are covered for that year. Have you heard of this scheme? Do you use it? If not, why not?

The rub is that Government has said that it wants any reforms to be neutral cost. That would mean that any benefits to people with asthma would mean losses to people with other conditions. Clearly that is unacceptable, and we are hopeful that sense will prevail and a sensible system will emerge.

To those of you in Scotland and Wales, yes I know you have free prescriptions already (or are in the process of getting them). Once again, England is lagging behind. The question I’d ask you is:

What difference has it made to you to get free prescriptions for your asthma?

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