www.iva.co.uk

Just wondering if anyone has and advice or experience of allowances etc for prescription charges when someone is on permanent medication. With prescription charges of £7.40 per item per month this soon mounts up and can hardly be classed as a luxury.

Hi Rod.
Have you thought about the pre payment prescription certificate? We have this, works out a lot cheaper. Costs us £28 for three months.

You can pay via pre payment which if you spend more than 2 prescriptions a month may help. Have a look at direct.gov for more details.

I had a prepayment certificate - did a twelve monthly one which works out just over a tenner a month I think for ten months.

Jan. Can I ask, did you pay that monthly?

OK, i'll look at that option, I take it that it cant be included as an allowance then?

Yes under dental & other healthcare costs.

I have £26pm down for medical and dental. The pre payment is much cheaper though if you are on regular medication!

Ok Langerbridge and Judo, very useful information. Costs are currently only for one item per month so a prepayment might not work out cost effective. It is a shame that the DRs wont give me three or even six months worth of medication at a time, it would work out much cheaper for me, but alas not raise the revenue for the NHS I suppose.

Judo - yes I paid it monthly.

I claimed for it seperately and it was allowed.

I will ask about that Jan next time I renew. My OH is on 3 different medications but I thought a one off payment had to be made to cover the year!

Doesn't look like you would be any better off Rod. Two or more prescriptions monthly would make it worth your while I think. Put down what you spend!

One of the other issues about giving 4/6 months medication in advance - if your dose of medication changes then these remaining old drugs have to be discarded - they are NOT allowed to re issue them. The cost of unused medication runs in to billions of pounds.

You could of course move to scotland

Exactly the reason GP won't go beyond a months prescription for my OH. His BP is all over the place so doc changes meds left, right and centre!!

my hubby has a prepayment cert. which is allowed for but i have recently got one as my meds have changed so I have included this amount in my new i and e form on my annual review. At one time you could only buy a 3 month or yearly cert. but the last years one I was able to pay monthly at £11 per month which is more affordable than £100 lump sum