Now even your PILLS will cost more! NHS prescriptions will rise by 30p from April to £9.65, despite the ‘health tax’ being frozen last year due to the cost of living crisis.
The cost of an NHS prescription will rise to £9.65 this year, the government announced today.
From April 1, patients in England will have to pay an extra £30 to collect their medicine from a pharmacy.
Campaigners have long called the fee patients in England have to pay to obtain certain medicines, such as warfarin or asthma inhalers, an “unfair health tax”.
England is the only UK country still suing, while Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland dropped charges more than a decade ago.
Prescription drug costs were frozen at £9.35 per item last April to “take pressure off the cost of living” – this was the first time the government had not imposed an annual increase in 12 years.
From April 1st, patients in England will have to pay an extra 30p to pick up their medication from a pharmacy
But in a statement tonight, the Department of Health and Social Care said it had applied an inflation rate of 3.21 percent.
The cost of prepaid certificates, graduation wigs and cloth supports will also increase according to the rate of inflation.
Currently, people who don’t qualify for free medicines can get a Prepaid Advance Certificate (PPC), which costs £108.10 for a year.
However, this will add up to £111.60 per year.
There are few fee waivers for patients in England, including 16-18 year olds studying full time or patients turning 60.
Medicines like birth control are also almost always free.
It comes as the Royal Pharmaceutical Society (RPS) warned last month that current costs do not reflect current times.
Experts and campaigners have long scorned the price hike, which they say runs counter to the NHS’s public plans and could lead patients to skimp on essential medicines.
An RPS survey last month also found that half of pharmacists had seen an increase in the number of patients asking them what prescription “can they do without” in the past six months.
One in two pharmacists also saw an increase in the number of people not picking up their prescription, while two in three pharmacists reported an increase in requests for cheaper drugs, over-the-counter substitutes for the medication they were prescribed.
Each year in England, approximately £600 million in revenue is generated from prescription charges for the provision of NHS services.
