simont | (no subject)

This week I've got round to starting to arrange getting gluten-free foods on prescription.

This is really silly. I would have hoped that the sensible way to do this would be to issue me with some sort of coeliac certificate, which I could then display in some fashion to get a discount when buying whatever I happened to fancy that month from gluten-free-food companies. But no; instead it's done through the ordinary prescription mechanism, and each GF food product is individually prescribable. So I had to actually go and talk to my GP and make a specific request for each of the particular things I wanted.

It seems completely daft to me that I have to waste the time of a highly trained medical professional on business which could be handled just as well by a supermarket checkout clerk. She insisted that because it really was a form of medical treatment it was perfectly reasonable, but she can insist that all she wants and it won't shake my opinion that changing my mind about my preference in pizza bases is not a worthwhile use of a doctor's valuable time.

So yesterday I dropped my prescription off at Boots, and today I have to go back and collect the stuff (which they had to order in). This is silly.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

*Boggle*. Well, presumably you'll be getting a prescription prepayment* and get it put on repeat prescription to cover this kind of thing, so it's merely a complete faff on your part, but doesn't involve that much effort on the part of the doctor? Does it have to be a doctor, or could you get one of the nurses** to do it? Of course, that's still taking up the time of a trained medical professional :-/

*Effectively free food, how neat ;-)
**Who appear to be being increasingly able to prescribe stuff, which is good.

Indeed, I already have a repeat prescription process set up, and in fact the doctor said that if I wanted something different I should just write the details on the repeat slip before dropping it in to the surgery; so after the first occasion I probably won't need to waste much of her valuable time. Still seems silly that it has to be done at all, though.

Boots told me that once I got a pre-payment certificate (which my sister insists on calling a "prescription season ticket" :-) they could retrospectively refund me on the prescriptions I've picked up so far, which struck me as well above the call of duty!

So how does that work then? I was wondering whether you had to pay a prescription charge per pizza base.

Pre-payment certificates. It is essentially a season ticket mechanism :-)

if I wanted something different I should just write the details on the repeat slip before dropping it in to the surgery;

Oh, that's good! My surgery is rubbish about that, I can't change anything on my repeat slip, not even the number of things that I want.

Boots told me that once I got a pre-payment certificate

I don't suppose my Cunning Trick would work as well for you. The trick being to get a 4 month prepayment, then in that 4 months get the doctor to give you medicine for about 8-10 months. Then don't get another certificate until the stock has run down.

My surgery is rubbish about that, I can't change anything on my repeat slip, not even the number of things that I want.

Well, I wouldn't have too much trouble believing that that was a more sensible attitude to drugs than to harmless food products, so perhaps it's dependent on the items being prescribed rather than the surgery? (Or do you get stuff on prescription which is comparable to my gluten-free pizza bases?)

*Nods* I suppose it could depend on what was being prescribed. I gather from the receptionist (who may not have been telling the whole truth for all I know) that they print out the prescription and take it to the doctor who signs it. They can't make any changes, and they won't/don't ask the doctor to make changes.

The stuff I get mostly isn't OTC stuff, and none of it is exactly innocuous, but even the non-repeat stuff isn't very hard to get hold of either: it seems to be quite easy to just say "give me foo", without what I'd think of as a "proper" check that you really should have it. (e.g. "Please give me X specific brand of excema cream" gets the response of "Here you are" not "Do you have excema?" or "Show me the sore patch")