Tell Your MP – No Prescription Charges with HIV

posted: 22/07/2010

It's prescription charging decision time. We need your help. Now the Department of Health and other parts of government are making the spending decisions which will be part of the Autumn Spending Review. This includes deciding whether to stop charging people with conditions including HIV, MS, Parkinson’s and heart disease for the prescriptions people need to stay well.

Money may be tight but that is no excuse for continuing the gross unfairness of England's prescription charging system. Prescription charges have already been abolished for everyone, not just people with long-term conditions, in Wales and Northern Ireland; Scotland will abolish the last £3 of their charge in 2011.
 

Campaigners like you have already helped persuade MPs to support this campaign to end prescription charges for people with long-term conditions, including HIV. In May, the Government's independent review of prescription charges showed how this can be achieved. Now, before Parliament goes on its summer holiday and the Autumn Spending Review appears in October, we need a last push - please ask your MP to support the campaign.

It's easy to act

Please click here to ask your MP in England to sign a Parliamentary motion calling on the government to scrap prescription charges for people with long-term conditions this Autumn.
 

Thank you for your support.
 

More information about the prescription charges review here

Information on help you can get with prescription costs here
 

Prescription Charges Coalition There are 22 members of the Prescription Charges Coalition, including Terrence Higgins Trust who represent the HIV sector:
Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome Support Group, Arthritis Care, Association for Spina Bifida and Hydrocephalus, Asthma UK, Behcets Syndrome Society, British Heart Foundation, Diabetes UK, Disability Alliance, FibroAction, Klinefelter’s Syndrome Association, Mind, Motor Neurone Disease Association, MS Society, National Ankylosing Spondylitis Society, National Association for Colitis and Crohn’s Disease, National Rheumatoid Arthritis Society, Parkinson’s UK, Pernicious Anaemia Society, Rethink, The Stroke Association, Skin Care Campaign, Terrence Higgins Trust
 

Prescription Charges Review

posted: 01/06/2010

The long-awaited review of prescription charges by Professor Ian Gilmore has appeared. Over a year ago, Gordon Brown promised at the Labour Party Conference to end prescription charges for people with long term conditions. People with cancer were exempted from charges but people with other long-term conditions, like HIV, are still waiting.

The report recommends that people with long-term conditions should have free prescriptions. It sets out a plan for how the government should change the unfair prescriptions system to make sure people get the medications they need to stay well.

You can read the full report.

Depends on autumn spending review
The coalition government has welcomed the review, but says it will only consider this in the autumn, as part of the Spending Review. Many MPs already support this campaign.

HIV and prescriptions

Since the start of 2009 Greater Manchester HIV clinics (among most other HIV clinics) have stopped prescribing any drugs except those for HIV and their treatment side effects. People must now turn to a GP for prescriptions for all other healthcare needs, such as depression and anxiety, and sexual dysfunction.
 

Some help already available

For some people with HIV this means paying for these prescriptions - some people are exempt, some are exempt because of low income, and some people can buy a discount card. Find out what help is available with English prescription charges here.

There are 22 members of the Prescription Charges Coalition, including Terrence Higgins Trust:

Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome Support Group, Arthritis Care, Association for Spina Bifida and Hydrocephalus, Asthma UK, Behcets Syndrome Society, British Heart Foundation, Diabetes UK, Disability Alliance, FibroAction, Klinefelter’s Syndrome Association, Mind, Motor Neurone Disease Association, MS Society, National Ankylosing Spondylitis Society, National Association for Colitis and Crohn’s Disease, National Rheumatoid Arthritis Society, Parkinson’s UK, Pernicious Anaemia Society, Rethink, The Stroke Association, Skin Care Campaign, Terrence Higgins Trust

Ask Candidates about Free Prescriptions

posted: 13/04/2010

One and a half years after Gordon Brown promised, here in Manchester, free prescriptions for people with long term conditions including cancer, the government has still not prepared new rules for Parliament to approve, apart from for cancer. There are many people with HIV who have to pay prescription charges. Some people are destitute, such as some migrants, and other people are on very low incomes. Some people are forced to choose between basics - eating and heating, and paying for treatment.

Help make sure all the election candidates know people care about free prescriptions are for people with long term conditions like HIV. Politicians are busy trying to win our votes, so it's the perfect time to make sure they know you want this pledge met by the next government - whoever they are.

Here are three easy things you can do to keep up the pressure:

Tell them on the doorstep - local candidates will be knocking on doors asking what matters to you in this election and aiming to convince you that they'll represent your views. Not many people will be talking about the unfair prescription charges for people with conditions like MS, Parkinsons disease and arthritis. Be original and tell them that you care about this issue. If you or a member of your family is directly affected by a long-term condition, you could tell them about it - that will really leave an impression.

Go to an election meeting - There will be question and answer sessions, known as hustings, in your area. There could even be a health-specific hustings. Ask the candidates whether they will support free prescriptions for people with long-term conditions. Promises of support that candidates make will be a matter of public record so make sure you take notes so we can hold them to their promises after the election. Check your local papers for details of election meetings with candidates.

Influence the leaders' TV debates - You can suggest a question for the three TV debates between Gordon Brown, David Cameron and Nick Clegg. Why not ask them whether they will support the health of millions of people with long-term conditions by scrapping charges for the prescriptions they need to stay well? Click on these links to submit your questions to ITV News , Sky News and BBC News.

Tell us what happens

Please tell the campaigners at THT if you get any commitments from candidates by emailing
Visit for more information the Prescription Promise campaign 

 

Prescriptions, HIV and Charges

posted: 10/03/2009

The British Medical Association has branded as pointless the Department of Health's consultation on making everyone with a long-term condition exempt from prescription charges. 

It says this is a waste of time and energy and the government should just make all remaining prescriptions free once more. Just 1 in 10 prescriptions are now paid for and this will fall even more because cancer patients will get free prescriptions from 1 April.

In Wales and Scotland all prescription charges have either already been abolished or are about to be abolished.

HIV treatment costs

Since the start of this year Greater Manchester HIV clinics (among other HIV clinics) have stopped prescribing any drugs except those for HIV and their treatment side effects. People must now turn to a GP for prescriptions for all other healthcare needs, such as depression amd anxiety, and sexual dysfunction. 

For some people with HIV this means paying for these prescriptions - some people are exempt, some are exempt because of low income, and some people can buy a discount card. Find out what help is available with English prescription charges here.

The charging review

The Prescription Charges Review will consider how to implement prime minister Brown's commitment to exempt patients with long-term conditions (LTCs) from prescription charges over the next few years following the exemption for cancer patients.

It will consider:

• how to define the range of long term conditions affecting patients that should be exempted from prescription charges;
• how exemption from charging can best be phased in, with due regard to:
  - what is in the best interests of patients
  - the potential impact on the wider health care system
  - implications for existing policies on management of long term conditions
  - implications for public expenditure

The review will report to the Minister for Public Health and the Secretary of State for Health in Summer 2009.

It would be good to have your say on exempting HIV as a longterm condition from prescription charges but it seems the Deaprtment of Health doesn't want to hear - there is no way to feed your views to the department at the consultation page.

Last September Gordon Brown announced that “as over the next few years the NHS generates cash savings in its drugs budget we will plough savings back into abolishing charges for all patients with long-term conditions”.  The Department of Health has established the Prescription Charges Review, chaired by Sir Ian Gilmore, to make recommendations on how this policy will be implemented. 

Charging by diagnosis or disability

The idea that we should discriminate in levels of charges according to diagnosis or disability is fundamentally misconceived. Herpes is a chronic condition. So are HIV and ME.

TB and syphilis are perhaps not chronic conditions because they can be treated and people cured, but it is in the interest of the rest of the population that people take their treatments properly and become clear of infections.

Continuing to restrict help with prescription charges to save money is a false economy. Despite the help available, the simple existence of charges is enough of a barrier to put off some of the poorest and most vulnerable. 

George House Trust supports the BMA argument, prescription charging has reached the point where the income from charging isn't worth the administrative and other costs of collection. Scotland and Wales are already seeing the benefits of free prescriptions. We don't need a review, we need prescription charges in England scrapped.

Department of Health Consultation

source

Free Prescriptions for HIV?

posted: 24/09/2008

Will people living with HIV soon have free prescriptions?

Prime Minister Brown announced to the Labour Party Conference here in Manchester yesterday, that people with cancer would soon qualify for free prescriptions, like people with some other long-term conditions.

What he said was:

"But alongside new patient responsibilities will be new rights. And because we know that almost every British family has been touched by cancer, Alan Johnson and I know we must do more to relieve the financial worry that so often goes alongside the heartache. And so I can announce today for those in our nation battling cancer from next year you will not pay prescription charges. ...... As over the next few years the NHS generates cash savings in its drugs budget we will plough savings back into abolishing charges for all patients with long-term conditions."

drugs for people living with HIV may be exempted

So Brown is offering the prospect that people living with HIV in England might, some time in the future, no longer have to pay prescription charges. While HIV drugs themselves are prescribed at no cost by the hospitals, other drugs, such as those to manage the side effects, for depression, for sexual dysfunction, have prescription charges. Some people diagnosed with HIV are exempt from charges because of the benefits people receive, or because of a low income. Many people living with HIV are not exempt from these charges.

England trails behind Wales and Scotland

No-one in Wales pays prescription charges, and the SNP are phasing them out in Scotland. What Brown might have said was “If you live in England, and we do manage to save money on the NHS drugs budget over the next few years, we may then stop charging you for prescriptions if you are living with HIV. We don't plan to restore free prescriptions to everyone living in England, although you could get these now if you lived in Wales, and soon in Scotland."