Huge change to NHS prescriptions kicks in tomorrow as pharmacists warn of a ... trends now
Pharmacists have warned tomorrow will be a 'dark day' for patients as the cost of an NHS prescription rises to almost £10.
They described the hike from £9.65 to £9.90 as a 'tax on the working poor' and fear people will be forced to miss out on medication because of the price.
It comes as new figures show chemists are relieving pressure on GPs by successfully treating nine in ten patients who seek care under the new NHS Pharmacy First Scheme.
The Company Chemists' Association, which represents large high street chemists such as Boots and Superdrug, says its members alone have conducted more than 90,000 consultations in the two months since it launched.
Of these, 88 per cent were eligible to receive NHS-funded care through the service, freeing up appointments with family doctors for people with more serious conditions.
Patients in England will, from April 1, be forced to pay an extra 25p to collect their medication from a pharmacy. Pharmacists described the hike as a 'tax on the working poor' and fear people will be forced to miss out on medication because of the price
The 12-month NHS prescription prepayment certificate – which covers all NHS prescriptions for a set price – will also increase from £111.60 to £114.50 tomorrow.
Meanwhile, prescriptions remain free in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
Tase Oputu, chair of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society in England, said: 'This is a dark day for patients who will now have to pay nearly £10 for each item on their prescription. '
Amid the cost of living crisis, the rise in prescription charges will hit working people on low incomes the hardest.
'The relentless annual increase in the prescription charge is making medicines unaffordable for many. This is totally unacceptable.
'You can, it seems, put a price on health.
'Every day pharmacists are asked by patients who are unable to afford all the items in their prescription which ones they can 'do without'.
'No-one should face a financial barrier to getting the medicines they need to keep them well.
'Prescription charges should be scrapped in England, as they have been in the rest of the UK.'
Nick Kaye, chairman of the National Pharmacy Association, said: 'To allow the prescription charge to rise to this level is a shameful neglect of working people on low fixed incomes, who are not exempt.
'Many people already choose not to collect some or all their prescription medicines because of cost, with potentially dire health consequences.
'This is a tax on the working poor that deepens the cost-of-living crisis for them.'
Prescriptions are free for certain groups of people including children, over-60s, pregnant women, people who are on certain benefits and people with certain medical conditions.
But the Prescription Charges Coalition, an alliance of more than 50 organisations, has called for an urgent review of the prescription charges exemption list.
The coalition said the exemption list has remained relatively unchanged for the last 50 years and neglects to include many
