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.

Threaded | Flat

Incredibly silly. Still, at least you can get assistance with buying the food.

That's a coincidence. I did that for the first time yesterday as well. I didn't speak to my doctor though - I just left my shopping list with the receptionist at the surgery.

ISTR seeing press for services that deliver your repeat prescriptions (the stuff, not the pieces of paper) for you. Not that I have any to hand I'm afraid...

*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.

Have you seen Appendix 7 of the BNF? This lists all the possible foods you can get your doctor to prescribe (pages 768-9 lists the foods prescribable for coeliac disease/gluten-sensitive enteropathies) - I guess you'll probably want to experiment a bit with the different types of gluten free biscuits/flour/rice/bread to find the ones you like.

Bah, maybe if I threaten to stop eating the NHS will pay for my food.