How is putting ‘taxpayer funded’ on drugs meant to make us feel? Grateful? Guilty?
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Version 0 of 1. Prescription drugs will carry a “wealth warning”, as I like to call it, from next year, according to an initiative announced this week by health secretary Jeremy Hunt. “We intend to publish the indicative medicine costs to the NHS on the packs of all medicines costing more than £20, which will also be marked ‘funded by the UK taxpayer’,” Hunt explained at a conference on Wednesday. Related: Price to be written on NHS-prescribed medicine costing more than £20 Officials at the health department are keen to point out that this is definitely not a cost–cutting measure. They say it’s all about encouraging patients to take their medication as directed. And definitely not about cutting the NHS’s £13.3bn annual drug bill, or encouraging doctors to prescribe cheaper alternatives, or making people feel bad that they’re costing a lot. Really? I find this very hard to swallow. First, let’s examine the Hunt rationale. “This will not just reduce waste by reminding people of the cost of medicine,” he said, “but also improve patient care by boosting adherence to drug regimes.” If you’re prescribed a seven-day course of antibiotics and you only take four days, why is that wasteful? It costs the same whether you swallow the pills or don’t. The thinking is that by ditching the pills after four days, you don’t complete the course, stay sick for longer and cost everyone more in the long run. But is that always true? GPs often give antibiotics for longer than guidelines recommend. The old orthodoxy that failing to finish courses of antibiotics can lead to complications is being questioned. People may stop taking a medication because they’re better and don’t need it any more. In fact, continuing to take medication longer than needed may increase the risk of complications, interactions and resistance. There are some situations, like the treatment of TB, in which it is vital to a person’s health – and the health of those around them – that they stick to the prescribed drug regime. But the key to achieving that buy-in is for a health professional to explain, listen, address concerns and follow up. I can’t see how putting the price tag on the back of packs will help. Up to 50% of patients do not take the drugs they have been prescribed in the way doctors or nurses intended or as indicated by the instructions. That statistic is a clarion call to the medical profession to communicate with patients better and to stop churning out prescriptions that people don’t want or understand the need for. Is there any virtue in Hunt’s idea? I think it’s justifiable to state the cost of drugs. It’s information that is known to health professionals and suppliers, so why not share it with the very people who are both funding and consuming the pills? Just because information is on a package, you don’t have to read it; think how long the weekly supermarket shop would take if we read all the info on food packages. But what about stamping “funded by the UK taxpayer” on packs of pills? How will that “improve patient care”? To me, it sounds officious, gratuitous and a bit nasty. Yes, prescription drugs are funded by the UK taxpayer. But this is done according to an allocation of funds determined by us, the voters. The NHS is the vehicle by which we have chosen to have our health services delivered to us. It is not a charity, it is not a gift from government and our prescriptions are not given at Jeremy Hunt’s largesse. There is no educational message here; everyone in the UK knows about the nature of the NHS. How is it supposed to make you feel when your cancer drugs cost thousands of pounds. Grateful? Pampered? Guilty? Greedy? If your pills have to bear a stamp, what about “wishing you better”? |