NHS prescriptions to rise 30p to £9.65 in April despite the ‘tax on health’ being frozen last year
Now even your PILLS will cost more! NHS prescriptions will rise by 30p to £9.65 from April – despite the ‘tax on health’ being frozen last year due to cost-of-living crisis
The cost of an NHS prescription will rise to £9.65 this year, the Government has announced today.
Patients in England will, from April 1, be forced to pay an extra 30p to collect their medication from a pharmacy.
Campaigners have long called the fee patients in England must pay to secure certain drugs like warfarin or asthma inhalers an ‘unfair tax on health’.
England is the only country in the UK that still charges, with Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland all ditching the charges over a decade ago.
Prescription charges were frozen at £9.35 per item last April to help ‘ease cost of living pressures’ – marking the first time the government did not impose an annual increase in 12 years.
Patients in England will, from April 1, be forced to pay an extra 30p to collect their medication from a pharmacy
In a statement, the Department of Health and Social Care said it had applied an inflation rate of 3.21 per cent.
The cost of pre-payment certificates, prescription wigs and fabric supports will also be increased in line with the inflation rate.
Currently people who don’t qualify for free drugs can get a prescription prepayment certificate (PPC), which costs £108.10 for a year. However, this will rise to £111.60 annually.
There are few pay exemptions for patients in England, including for those aged 16-18 and in full-time education or patients once they turn 60.
Drugs like contraception are almost always free too.
It comes as the Royal Pharmaceutical Society (RPS) last month warned the current charges don’t reflect the current times.
An RPS survey also revealed that half of pharmacists had seen an increase in patients asking them which prescription they can ‘do without’ in the last six months.
One in two pharmacists had also seen a rise in people not collecting their prescription, while two in three pharmacists reported seeing an increase in requests for cheaper, over-the-counter substitutes for the medicine they had been prescribed.
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