Over the Christmas holidays, I decided to cover a few locum shifts at various pharmacies and a topic of concern was brought up by a few patients. The government is proposing to increase the age of entitlement for free prescriptions from 60 years to match the state pension age, which currently stands at 66 years old.
There are two options being proposed: Option A would raise the qualifying age for free prescriptions to 66 for everyone. This would include, for example, a 63-year-old who has already had free prescriptions for the past three years – to then start paying again until they meet the new threshold.
Option B would introduce a period of protection, allowing those in the 60-65 age bracket to be able to get their prescription free of charge. Those aged 59, however, will have to pay for their prescriptions until they reach the state pension age.
My initial concern with option A is that patients with life-long medical conditions would originally have had a medical exemption certificate – which they would no longer need on turning 60 – but would now need to have a medical exemption certificate reinstated once again. This can be a lengthy process, depending on your GP, with some patients not being 100% confident that their local GPs would prioritise this. This could leave, for example, a diabetic patient on six or seven medications paying well over £60 per batch until their medical certificate is approved.
However, when I spoke to a GP, my concerns were allayed, as it seems like a very quick task that wouldn’t add much burden to the practices, even though the government hasn’t yet put any guidance out for them.
"Pharmacy gets the brunt"
The problem is, however, that for those patients who may have to unexpectedly pay for medications or haven’t had their medical exemption certificates approved in time, pharmacy staff will most likely face the backlash of angry customers who will no doubt be annoyed by this sudden incurred cost. Although I too would be annoyed about the situation for them, I worry that not all patients would see us as being on their side, but rather as the person who has decided to charge them out of the blue.
The best thing pharmacists can do is to make sure patients pay, otherwise could face a £100 fine. This also comes at a time where our national insurance is set to be increased in April 2022. At this point, it just adds an extra confusion as to where this tax money is going, increasing the national insurance input, but at the same time cutting down on tax-paid services. The 60-66 age group would bring in a major amount of money – as the government has acknowledged – as this is the age group where hypertension, strokes and heart attacks typically occur.
I know many of my colleagues will agree that prescriptions in England should be free, as they already are in Scotland and Wales. The best thing for patients would be to keep it as it is, or remove the charge completely, as it is an unnecessary burden for them. If any changes were to be made on prescription charges, it should be more in direction of making it free like our surrounding countries, yet we are going completely in the opposite direction.
The only fractional positivity that I can see from this is perhaps there would be less medical wastage by patients once they realise medications are an expensive matter. Although, as I said, this positivity really is marginal, as this age group probably isn’t the most guilty of checking everything off on the repeat request forms.
Interestingly, this news came out all the way back in July 2021, and was subject to an eight-week consultation – the results of which are yet to be published.
Despite pharmacy minister Maria Caulfield answering a question on this earlier this month, I don’t feel there has been enough traction of this important matter in the media, and I am even guilty of not knowing of this plan until the Christmas period. Looking at the petition calling on the proposals to be scrapped altogether, it has not even hit 100,000 signatures. I feel it would be very well deserved if it had.
Zhyar Said is a locum pharmacist based in Surrey and the owner of a pre-reg pharmacist educational platform on Instagram called @Revise_Pharma