Would you pay higher taxes for NHS drugs for all? Poll discussion

[Deleted User]

So all i need to do is shove coffee up my bum right?

DavyBoy_2

I've seen people cured by Evangelicals on TV!
! SAY HALLELUJAH !

Personally, I'll place my faith in Science!

[Deleted User]

I definatly wouldnt put my faith in science, those guys dont even know how to wipe their own bum.

All praise the evangelicals for they are god put on this earth to cure us.

janbanan

Yes, I am willing to pay more tax. Judging by the amount of money people happily spend on mortgages and unnecessary luxury items I can't believe the state of the health system. My cat gets better treatment than I would. Mismanagement, perhaps. But I don't think that's all.

sinizterguy

sevans wrote: »

I just hope that these people who would not give even one penny in the pound more in tax to help with drugs needed to give people more quality of life don't need help themselves, I'm sure that if these illnesses happened to them or their family it would be a different matter and they would soon change their views. At the age of 50 my husband was struck with Parkinsons Disease, although he can no longer work, but I have to, we still has to pay for the cocktail of drugs that he has to take to enable him to get through the day. Some poor people don't even get this opportunity as the drugs are too expensive for the NHS to fund. Some people are so selfish, they do not deserve their health.

When I get ill, I will leave this country and go elsewhere. From everything I have seen in the NHS I would rather not be treated in any of their hospitals. I am sure I would pick up lots of things I did not go in there with.

And some of the nurses are beyond incompetent. I have heard of them administering insulin to diabetic patients before breakfast and wondering why they were not doing well.

sinizterguy

Yant1 wrote: »

Doctors earn too much money, we should cap the top salary to 60K which is more then fair for teh type of work, GPs should be capped at 38K as they have possibly the easiest and cushiest job in the country. However the lower end - trainee doctors needs moving up a tad and more support during training. In order to get this expensive training they must tie themselves into the nhs for 16 years.

Ive came across too many doctors that just dont know there own job so frequent reevaluation and testing is required. Too many doctors dont know there a**e from there elbow and its killing thousands of people.

Why on earth would anyone in their sane mind go through 5 years training, 2 years of PRHO crap, years of further hassle to work for peanuts such as that ?

You obviously do not have a clue what it involves.

Tie themselves in for 16 years ? I wont even comment on that because I doubt I could keep profanity out of it.

moneysaving_pharmacist

Some good comments here, but with others the stupid really does burn. Teddyco, please get a brain transplant, or learn some critical thinking skills. Quoting articles from the Daily Mail really does your argument no good at all. Although anedoctes are interesting, they don't actually show anything - that's why drug companies and governments spend millions on conducting trials. As for aspirin, yes it's good for preventing heart attacks and stokes, but it can cause stomach ulcers. So it's not perfect.

Yant1, if being a doctor is so easy why don't you go to uni for five years, then do several years postgraduate training? Oh, I forgot, you wouldn't get in, you don't even know the difference between there and their. And if you did cap consultant pay at £60k and GP pay at £38k then you wouldn't have very many NHS consultants or GPs - they'd either set up private practices, or be dentists or pharmacists instead. By the way, being in possesion of morphine in the UK without the authority of a prescription is illegal - its a Class A drug.

To actually answer the question asked, somekind of rationing is inevitable. You could give the NHS the GDP of the UK as its budget and it wouldn't be enough. The NHS has a finite budget and decisions have to be made about how it is going to be spent. NICE (in England and Wales) and the Scottish Medicines Consortium have a very tough job to do, and on the whole they do it very well. They look at all the available evidence and try to quanitfy how effective the drug or procedure is in terms of quality adjusted life years gained - they are not solely concerned with the cost of a drug, more cost-effectiveness. The system we have now with NICE and SMC is far better than the previous system where it was all down to the individual doctor.

wensmcg basically says what I've said above, but far more eloquently. There is also a good point made about waste. I currently work in a community pharmacy in a relatively large village. We have our patient returned medications collected every three months by a contractor. They generally take away eight sacks of medication each time. That is thousands of pounds of medication wasted because patients order what they don't need or because doctors order silly quantities. Please only order the medication you actually need at that point in time.

Some people have commented on prescription charges. Health in Wales is a partially devolved matter, so the Welsh Assembly will have to find the money they've lost by abolishing prescription charges from elsewhere in their budget. The vast majority of prescriptions issued in England are exempt from charges (over 80%). The amount charges raise for the DoH is fairly small (between £500m and £750m IIRC). Patients who do have to pay prescription charges can buy pre-payment certificates for around £100 per year (speak to your pharmacist or see http://www.ppa.org.uk/ppa/ppc_intro.htm It works out cheaper if you have more than 4 prescriptions in 3 months or 14 in 12). The prescription charge bears no relation to the cost of the drugs - if you pay, you pay the same if you have a prescription for atenolol, which costs pennies per month, as you would if you have a prescription for Glivec, which costs £1500 per month.

wooziesuzie

Hi, I work for a community pharmacy and would just like to add that the amount of pure wastage from N.H.S scripts patients is enormous. The pharmacy I work for offers a free Medicine Use Review which is trying to advise Doctors and patients of alternative (cheaper and more useful) medication for their needs. The amount of medication that is returned to us (unused) for disposal is horrific and adds up to thousands on a monthly basis ,not only is it bleeding the N.H.S of valuable money but it also costing pharmacies to dispose of it. If there is any one way of the N.H.S saving money it would be to educate the people (and drs) taking or prescribing the medicines as to why they are taking them and if they no longer need to take them. More importantly the patients who order their medication who don't pay for their prescriptions should think more carefully about what they are ordering, their thinking being 'well it's not costing me anything and I could do with spares'. I would therefore reccommend that if any one who is on regular medication from the doctors should call into their local pharmacy and ask for a Medicine Use Review.

moneysaving_pharmacist

There is an excellent article on the Guardian website by Dr Richard Smith, former editor of the British Medical Journal that everyone should read: http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/richard_smith/2007/08/chemical_reactions.html

with thanks to http://blacktriangle.org/blog/

Susanna_2

I work in the NHS and have experience of acute( hospital) and primary( GP & community). My experience which is backed up by many of my other colleagues is that many people who dont pay for prescriptions tend to be happy asking for drugs, but then either dont come and collect them (example for children leaving hospital) and then get some more from the GP, leaving us with drugs we have to throw away because we are not allowed to use drugs prescribed for somebody with their name on for somebodyelse. Or they take the drugs ( this is more people on benefits & elderly) and just leave them in a cupboard and not use them.
So based on this rational, if drugs were free for all then we would have a bottomless pit to fill in.
My experience in life if people have to contribute something then they tend to look after what they got and are not so wasteful with resourses.