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Prescribing of over the counter med in uk are changing

Ganjcat

Ganjcat

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Joined
Apr 13, 2013
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I'm gonna let this leaflet I picked up do the talki11853

Does this mean we might get stronger otc meds like 15/500 cocodomal, one can only dream..
 
ChemicallyEnhanced said:
Hope so!
And hey, send some replies my way Petesterrrrr [no, YOU're drunk]
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Soz man just been running about a bit today I feel so weird after having some codeine today I can't feel my legs and I feel like they will give way any second as this ever happened to you?
 
Pete556 said:
Soz man just been running about a bit today I feel so weird after having some codeine today I can't feel my legs and I feel like they will give way any second as this ever happened to you?
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I get that from DHC or Tramadol sometimes. Normally I'll just gett in bed when that happens and try to sleep it off for a few hours.
 
Pete556 said:
I'm gonna let this leaflet I picked up do the talkiView attachment 11853

Does this mean we might get stronger otc meds like 15/500 cocodomal, one can only dream..
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it means you have to start spending your own $ to buy NSAIDs, antihistamines, whatever. The docs won't just RX you a huge amount of advil and you can get it free off the state anymore.

You know, because $0.02/per pill is a huge cost compared to a surgery... I guess all those immigrants were totally worth it for the people who can't afford their pills, huh?
 
Different over here Captain H, they prescribe industrial boxes of NSAIDs on request. My Grandad has a separate repeat just for Paracetamol and Naproxen. He gets a six month supply of each at a time. In our pharmacies the codeine and Dhc (minor dosages) are next to the “Advil” and Paracetamol.

It used to be shelved very obscurely and almost hiding. Many other things are “under” the counter hoping noone knows the rules lol i.e Promethazine and Codeine Linctus!!
 
What's the point of nationalized health care if it isn't literally free, it sounds like nationalized health care is failing over there if that's what's happening to be honest.

I'm not surprised given what I heard about 4+ hour long hospital waits. Eventually people get tired of the "forever line" and use money to speed things up = capitalism.
 
It is free for kids and pensioners, but only £9 per script regardless of how many items or amounts. It is amazing as a front line service but yes, failing in many areas. One thing you probably know is our Docs are still oblivious to the opioid crisis, imagine your side of the pond 10 years ago, throwing out Oxy like candy, we are still at that point. Not that I’m complaining of course ????
 
its also free if you have a chronic health condition. my mum is T1 diabetic and gets her insulin free, and anything else, because diabetes has lots of potential complications. my dad had cancer treatments for free last year. the point of nationalised healthcare is that conditions such as these don't cripple a family that isn't exceptionally wealthy.

the NHS is being pushed to fail by the conservatives who want to make lots of money privatising it. they have done this with every public service prior to selling it, its a well known tactic, get it so bad that something needs to change and claim the only thing that can save it is privatisation. our previous health secretary jeremy hunt actively wanted this because of his ties to private health. if brexit goes ahead they'll probably sacrifice it to get a trade deal with the US.
 
Shortec Stublue!! said:
It is free for kids and pensioners, but only £9 per script regardless of how many items or amounts. It is amazing as a front line service but yes, failing in many areas. One thing you probably know is our Docs are still oblivious to the opioid crisis, imagine your side of the pond 10 years ago, throwing out Oxy like candy, we are still at that point. Not that I’m complaining of course ????
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It's not a crisis though it's just a drug trend. Heroin was really popular a few decades ago, then cocaine, meth came out... now it's back to dope and everyone's so scared. These drugs have been around a while; they just fluctuate up and down in trends.

We have a pretty bad mental health crisis here though.
 
Sorry chinup, yeah people with an exemption certificate etc, It is world class of say you are suddenly in a ten car pile up and in ICU, but ward care and general practice is a mess. It is one thing that will never be privatised. 1948 the year of conception bill can’t be overturned.
 
Yeah I mean more scripted epidemic than general street narcotic one. We are the only European country still using the old Oxy for example. And even more surprising as my namesake suggests, we have an ir capsule called shortec which has the most perfect driven snow fine powder rolled out as though they encourage you to snort it lol.
 
Captain.Heroin said:
What's the point of nationalized health care if it isn't literally free, it sounds like nationalized health care is failing over there if that's what's happening to be honest.

I'm not surprised given what I heard about 4+ hour long hospital waits. Eventually people get tired of the "forever line" and use money to speed things up = capitalism.
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Prescribing paracetamol or ibuprofen when they are pennies in a supermarket for a box is just wasting NHS money.

If you're not exempt it actually costs more to get a prescription than to buy a few packs in a few stores (even if you can't buy more than 2 per transaction). A prescription is now £9 if you don't have an exemption but it's a flat cost.
It's really the only medical cost if you live here (I'm excluding dental costs as dental work on the NHS incurs a charge). And I think £9 for a prescription is not gonna bankrupt anyone who isn't exempt (if you're poor you'd be claiming benefits anyway). I get two packs of omeprazole (56 tablets) on a single prescription and charge from the GP. You can buy prepaid certificates and pay less. You're not only exempt if you have chronic illnesses but also if you're pregnant or in receipt of benefits and if your partner or child are exempt because they're receiving benefits.

Consider that any tests on the NHS are completely free. In Italy we have to pay a certain amount towards them unless we are exempt. It's like that in many country that have subsidised health care.
We (as in UK residents) pay higher taxes than all Europe but the health care is accessible financially to anyone who is a resident.

I live in the UK but I'm originally from Italy.
 
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This makes perfect sense really. Like others have said it means docs can't script you huge amounts of OTC meds so that they're dirt cheap. This isn't usually done with NSAIDs which are cheap as fuck already, but other OTC meds which might otherwise cost let's say £10 a box, the GP can script ten boxes and you will pay the prescription charge (currently £9). So the NHS is covering the cost of OTC meds for you.

I might have to do some research to see if it's just your local CCG doing this or if it's nationwide orders from the top.

If it is national it spells good news for me. Why? Simply because it shows the priority of NICE and the NHS right now is to save the NHS money when it comes to choosing what meds to prescribe patients. This means a lot of good things for us.

First of all it means they're unlikely to try and ban OTC sales of co-codamol, Paramol, Nurofen Plus, even codeine linctus any time soon like other countries (Australia, France) have done in recent years, because if they did it'd mean more NHS resources going to providing those drugs which currently patients are happy to pay for themselves. It also means you can try walking into a pharmacy which may be reluctant to sell codeine linctus and if they tell you they only sell it with a prescription you can just say your GP told you it's available over-the-counter and the NHS is unwilling to prescribe OTC meds anymore and show this photo of the poster on your phone for proof.

Second it most certainly also means a push away from expensive patented drugs in favour of cheap generic drugs. You know those fancy new "anti-abuse" and time release meds like Targin (oxycodone/naloxone) and Elvanse/Vyvanse (lisdexamph)? They cost the NHS something like £100+ per box/bottle, keeping in mind that especially with the Targin a patient may very well require multiple boxes per month. The generic equivalents, which in this case would be generic oxycodone XR (many generics exist for this in the UK, main one is Longtec which is at least 20% cheaper than OxyContin and probably even cheaper than that for Targin) and dexamphetamine (only a few generics here but again, much cheaper than Elvanse) respectively, cost the NHS more like £20-50 per box.

So if your GP has been told to avoid prescribing expensive patented medication unless absolutely necessary, and they have a choice between the patented Targin and regular old generic Longtec, they may very well give you the generic to save the cash strapped NHS some coin. You in turn get a pill you can chew or crush up or one that is just good old instant release.

The NHS has also long been avoiding the prescription of Targin anyway due to lack of evidence it actually lives up to its claims of reducing constipation, which is the basis on which it was approved by NICE, yet it costs a fuckload. Elvanse scripts on the other hand have gone up, but if they are moving to cut costs they may be more willing to move patients to IR dex.

Oh and mods it may be better to move this thread to EADD because here it seems like it's just becoming a political debate about the NHS.
 
Shortec Stublue!! said:
Yeah I mean more scripted epidemic than general street narcotic one. We are the only European country still using the old Oxy for example. And even more surprising as my namesake suggests, we have an ir capsule called shortec which has the most perfect driven snow fine powder rolled out as though they encourage you to snort it lol.
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I don't think this is true mate, most countries outside of the US still use the old oxy not just the UK. All of Europe still has the OC formula. The only country I have heard of having OP's outside of the US are Canada and Australia.

I've said this in more detail in another thread but basically, an OP formula would be useless in Europe because generics are available. If they made Longtec into an OP formula patients could simply ask for another generic. The only reason OP's work in the US is because Purdue got their patent extended in the US so you can only buy Purdue OxyContin and no generics for oxycodone extended release.
 
chinup said:
its also free if you have a chronic health condition. my mum is T1 diabetic and gets her insulin free, and anything else, because diabetes has lots of potential complications. my dad had cancer treatments for free last year. the point of nationalised healthcare is that conditions such as these don't cripple a family that isn't exceptionally wealthy.

the NHS is being pushed to fail by the conservatives who want to make lots of money privatising it. they have done this with every public service prior to selling it, its a well known tactic, get it so bad that something needs to change and claim the only thing that can save it is privatisation. our previous health secretary jeremy hunt actively wanted this because of his ties to private health. if brexit goes ahead they'll probably sacrifice it to get a trade deal with the US.
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Not all chronic conditions though, only a select few. Cancer and diabetes are on the list but asthma for example is not. Many others also don't make the cut. It's very arbitrary. It's not that any chronic conditions gets you free scripts. It's that there is a set list of conditions that are exempt from the charge.

I also think it's a bit of a pisstake that Scotland and Wales get free prescriptions but not England.

Anyway, as for the US I think the media has spun this into some big scare story. If the NHS become more privatised you can blame the Tories absolutely but not the US. That quote about the NHS being "on the table" for trade negotiations was taken madly out of context by the papers. It seems to me all it means is the US wants to be free to sell pharmaceuticals and other medical equipment to the NHS. After all that's a big market.

Assuming that's all it is, that's no bad thing for us. More competition in the supply chain is a good thing. Especially with medicines where the NHS periodically has trouble sourcing particular drugs. And there's all this panic about losing access to meds from the EU. Well if the US is willing to sell them to us how is that a bad thing? It doesn't mean the US gets to privatise the NHS just because they sell us medications does it? As things are now, Brexit or no, the NHS already buys medications from private pharma companies, often US based ones.

I am far from a big fan of the US and definitely no fan of the Trump administration but it seems like this deal Trump wants to do with us is a net positive for the UK to me. Forget media bias and political spin and look at the facts, see what's actually happening and make up your mind from that. Again there is no sign that a trade deal with the US would mean selling them the NHS, this is utter bollocks. There is however a clear sign the US is interested in supplying us with pharmas. Considering we are worried about losing supply from Europe this could be a good thing. If supply from other countries is also maintained, it means a more competitive supply chain.
 
Btw, this just means they won't prescribe you things like paracetamol because it would cost you as little as 35p to buy but it costs the NHS £10 a pack to prescribe it so it's a huge waste of their limited resources. It does not mean that more things will become OTC at all.
 
ChemicallyEnhanced said:
Btw, this just means they won't prescribe you things like paracetamol because it would cost you as little as 35p to buy but it costs the NHS £10 a pack to prescribe it so it's a huge waste of their limited resources. It does not mean that more things will become OTC at all.
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Correct but I also think it's a good sign that the existing OTC meds we have like codeine linctus, co-codamol, Nurofen Plus, Paramol, etc are here to stay because making them prescription only would put even more strain on the NHS. If the push is to cut costs by having patients buy meds OTC instead of wasting NHS resources on those same meds, that's motivation to keep the current stuff OTC.

It may also be motivation to keep allowing those online pharmacies selling private scripts for DHC to keep doing their thing because again that's saving the NHS money as patients pay for their meds privately.

However let's not forget that Pfizer recently got Viagra classed as OTC. It's not too crazy to imagine more drugs might get made OTC in the future. But I imagine most of those would be non-abusable like Viagra.
 
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