New research from Canada has confirmed the point campaigners have been making for decades: that prescription charges deter or prevent poorer patients from complying with the treatment they need – and offer only an illusion of financial savings.
A 2-year study involving almost 800 patients in various parts of Ontario showed that regular use of prescribed medicines was 35% higher amongst those receiving free prescription drugs than those left to fend for themselves, while free distribution of medication also reduced healthcare costs, including hospitalization, by an average of $1,222 per patient per year.
Canada is the only country with universal healthcare that does not have a universal pharmacare program to subsidise or exempt vulnerable and low income patients from the full cost of prescription drugs.
But the findings also underline the value of scrapping charges on prescriptions in the NHS, currently standing at £9.35 per item, and posing barriers to care for many on low pay that just exceeds the upper limit for exemption.
The only reason there has not been wider campaigning on this has been the very high level of exemptions covering 40% of the population, meaning that around 90% of prescriptions in England are dispensed free of charge, while the NHS in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland abolished all prescription charges years ago.
The Department of Health and Social Care collected a total of just £614m in prescription charges in 2019/20, towards total expenditure of £137 billion – less than half of one percent.
The potential savings that could be achieved by ensuring all those on low incomes can access all the drugs they need have not been estimated: but the Canadian research suggests that scrapping the charges could easily pay for itself – and end the misery for large numbers of patients.
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