Discussion
I keep seeing Facebook posts about buy your own paracetamol for only 16p from a shop as it costs the NHS £10 each time, why does it cost the NHS £10? They have got to be one of the worlds largest purchasers of paracetamol, with their buying power they should be paying sod all, how on earth can wastage of money like this be allowed? Is there any truth to this inflated cost? If so then totally unnecessary spending like this needs to be eliminated and people doing it sacked.
The drugs, as you say, cost almost nothing. The cost to the NHS comes from:
Paying a Dr for 2 minutes to write a prescription.
Paying a pharmacist for 5 minutes to check the prescription, sort the drugs, hand them over, check the patient's eligibility for free prescriptions, take (or not) payment.
Paying couriers to ferry around vast quantities of tablets every day.
Paying admin staff to claim these costs back.
Paying people to re-stock the pharmacy.
And that's before you get into the fact that all these people could be doing something more effective with their time.
If people are quibbling over 16p, they need to think hard about what the NHS is for.
Paying a Dr for 2 minutes to write a prescription.
Paying a pharmacist for 5 minutes to check the prescription, sort the drugs, hand them over, check the patient's eligibility for free prescriptions, take (or not) payment.
Paying couriers to ferry around vast quantities of tablets every day.
Paying admin staff to claim these costs back.
Paying people to re-stock the pharmacy.
And that's before you get into the fact that all these people could be doing something more effective with their time.
If people are quibbling over 16p, they need to think hard about what the NHS is for.
Thesprucegoose said:
don't think you can get them on the nhs now.
You cant, unless it's a very extreme case/reason.The bigger issues have been for a long time being able to get gluten free bread, pizza bases, baking products on prescription ... Most areas have stopped this now but it was a massive drain a few years ago.
Special solutions are also a massive drain. When I worked for the business services authority who handle all the prescription recharging and claims saw one claim for 50l of basic anal cleanse solution (saline solution) at £400 per l!
The pharmacist was reported to fraud but nothing ever came of it. There's a LOT of people on the fiddle in this environment and because there are so many prescriptions most go amiss.
V8covin said:
Contracts.
Blame the procurement departments who agree to pay over the odds..... I'm sure they get inducements from the suppliers.
Massive amount of waste goes on in the NHS,you only have to speak to someone who works on the front line to know that
My other half was responsible for stock control and replenishment for 13 years and despite her protests the level of incompetence and waste within their system was mind blowing.Blame the procurement departments who agree to pay over the odds..... I'm sure they get inducements from the suppliers.
Massive amount of waste goes on in the NHS,you only have to speak to someone who works on the front line to know that
Every week orders would be delivered incorrectly, stuff she hadn't ordered and had no use for delivered and unless it was valued above £100 she was not allowed to return it, "not worth it" apparently, so all this stuff would sit on the shelves until there was no more space in the hope it could be used and then dumped. This would often amount to several £100's each week.
Every week stuff she had ordered and needed wasn't delivered so that had to be reordered and sent special delivery.
She could go to the local Boots and buy dressings, plasters and all sorts of other high use stuff for a fraction of the price the hospital was charged through the NHS system.
In the 13 years she worked there she was never required to do an annual stocktake and her weekly orders, usage and general stock control were never audited. She could have ordered anything on the system for personal use and taken out of the hospital, nobody was ever checked when they left work.
She worked at a very small cottage hospital with only 2 wards, imagine what it must have been like, and probably still is, at the larger hospitals. She only left about 7 years ago and I doubt much has changed since then.
Across the whole of the NHS it must amount to a horrific amount of money being wasted. I don't think in those days they had a centralised buying system, each authority just did their own thing so they didn't seem to taking advantage of their enormous buying power which seems a criminal waste of tax payers money.
The trouble is nobody had any accountability and nobody seemed to charged with standing back and looking at the wider picture.
Allegedly
Monkeylegend said:
Across the whole of the NHS it must amount to a horrific amount of money being wasted. I don't think in those days they had a centralised buying system, each authority just did their own thing so they didn't seem to taking advantage of their enormous buying power which seems a criminal waste of tax payers money.
The trouble is nobody had any accountability and nobody seemed to charged with standing back and looking at the wider picture.
Allegedly
careful - you'll get corbin's lot screaming about you wanting to privatise the NHS <sigh>The trouble is nobody had any accountability and nobody seemed to charged with standing back and looking at the wider picture.
Allegedly
This is how I understand it:
Scenario: You go to your GP for an appointment, they agree your have a problem and prescribe 16 X 500mg Paracetamol Tablets. You take said prescription to a community pharmacy who dispense it for you. Lets assume you don't pay a prescription fee (in my experience over 80% of prescriptions weren't 'paid for'). This is the scenario the facebook article was hinting at I think.
Costs to the NHS:
GP Appointment: £30 (www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-46732626)
Cost of the prescription to NHS: (www.nhsbsa.nhs.uk)
- Drug tariff reimbursement value of 16 Paracetamol: £0.35
- Single activity fee (per-item fee the pharmacy gets for doing the dispensing): £1.27
Total: £31.62
There might be a couple of other fees on the prescription (it's a while since I've used the Drug Tariff in anger!) but they will only account for a few pence.
As you can see, its the cost of the consultation that really costs the NHS - it's here where people decide they will see their GP for a condition that could be treated for pence in the pharmacy that racks up the costs massively! so by the time the GP decides you do just need Paracetamol, the cost is already £30.
What used to really grind my gears was when in the pharmacy I'd advise someone they just need paracetamol etc, and they'd say' I'll get an appointment form the GP to get it for free then!' - and low and behold, they'd pop back later with their bit of green paper...
Obviously all the other posters experience of wastage in hospitals etc are totally valid, but slightly different scenarios from seeing you GP/heading to your local Pharmacy.
Scenario: You go to your GP for an appointment, they agree your have a problem and prescribe 16 X 500mg Paracetamol Tablets. You take said prescription to a community pharmacy who dispense it for you. Lets assume you don't pay a prescription fee (in my experience over 80% of prescriptions weren't 'paid for'). This is the scenario the facebook article was hinting at I think.
Costs to the NHS:
GP Appointment: £30 (www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-46732626)
Cost of the prescription to NHS: (www.nhsbsa.nhs.uk)
- Drug tariff reimbursement value of 16 Paracetamol: £0.35
- Single activity fee (per-item fee the pharmacy gets for doing the dispensing): £1.27
Total: £31.62
There might be a couple of other fees on the prescription (it's a while since I've used the Drug Tariff in anger!) but they will only account for a few pence.
As you can see, its the cost of the consultation that really costs the NHS - it's here where people decide they will see their GP for a condition that could be treated for pence in the pharmacy that racks up the costs massively! so by the time the GP decides you do just need Paracetamol, the cost is already £30.
What used to really grind my gears was when in the pharmacy I'd advise someone they just need paracetamol etc, and they'd say' I'll get an appointment form the GP to get it for free then!' - and low and behold, they'd pop back later with their bit of green paper...
Obviously all the other posters experience of wastage in hospitals etc are totally valid, but slightly different scenarios from seeing you GP/heading to your local Pharmacy.
Sounds like BS to me, who's getting a prescription for paracetamol anyway? And what is three prescription cost?
If you're in a hospital bed and taking paracetamol the cost of the tablet is not representative of the cost of you taking the tablet.
Avoid all media s
te like this until election is over and judge the state of things in your own eyes and ears experience, there's a lot of BS out there.
If you're in a hospital bed and taking paracetamol the cost of the tablet is not representative of the cost of you taking the tablet.
Avoid all media s
te like this until election is over and judge the state of things in your own eyes and ears experience, there's a lot of BS out there. Supernova190188 said:
I keep seeing Facebook posts about buy your own paracetamol for only 16p from a shop as it costs the NHS £10 each time, why does it cost the NHS £10? They have got to be one of the worlds largest purchasers of paracetamol, with their buying power they should be paying sod all, how on earth can wastage of money like this be allowed? Is there any truth to this inflated cost? If so then totally unnecessary spending like this needs to be eliminated and people doing it sacked.
Pharmacists are private contractors. They are paid a fee to dispense - that's where the cost comes from.My OH was bedridden in hospital for 3 weeks in August and when she came out she needed a walking (Zimmer) frame to help her get around. When we asked them where do we bring it back to when she doesn't need it we were told "We can't take them back, health and safety". I get that as I'm sure they do get misused and the NHS don't want anyone suing them if they have an accident with a used frame but surely there is a better way.
petethechemist said:
rossub said:
Pharmacists are private contractors. They are paid a fee to dispense - that's where the cost comes from.
But as I said, the fee for a single prescription item is £1.27, no idea where the £10 comes from! I will bow to your first hand knowledge of the costsIt's not coming from the GP either. As far as I'm aware they are paid according to the number of patients they have, with other payments for things such as level of deprivation in the area and certain illnesses patients have to cover the greater workload. They're certainly not paid by prescription written or by appointment - that would open the door to even more vast amounts of waste!
Humpy D said:
My OH was bedridden in hospital for 3 weeks in August and when she came out she needed a walking (Zimmer) frame to help her get around. When we asked them where do we bring it back to when she doesn't need it we were told "We can't take them back, health and safety". I get that as I'm sure they do get misused and the NHS don't want anyone suing them if they have an accident with a used frame but surely there is a better way.
It costs more to decontaminate and re-stock than to buy new. Simple as that.Imagine someone could prove they caught some awful disease off a used frame. It's not worth the risk to the NHS.
rossub said:
petethechemist said:
rossub said:
Pharmacists are private contractors. They are paid a fee to dispense - that's where the cost comes from.
But as I said, the fee for a single prescription item is £1.27, no idea where the £10 comes from! I will bow to your first hand knowledge of the costsIt's not coming from the GP either. As far as I'm aware they are paid according to the number of patients they have, with other payments for things such as level of deprivation in the area and certain illnesses patients have to cover the greater workload. They're certainly not paid by prescription written or by appointment - that would open the door to even more vast amounts of waste!
It's more I still remember how to google the right figures!I think you're dead right on the GP funding, it relates to size of patient list, demographics of the area etc, Then if you take that figure and divide by the number of consultations they do, you get to the £30 per consultation - so it's what it costs, not what they charge/claim for it.
Slightly off track, but relevent to topic
Question to someone better placed than I to explain why if owning a dispensing chemist is a viable business propostion, why dont more Dr's surgeries have thier own (to retain profit) or why NHS doesnt open dispensing chemists again to feed profits back into the system ?
Question to someone better placed than I to explain why if owning a dispensing chemist is a viable business propostion, why dont more Dr's surgeries have thier own (to retain profit) or why NHS doesnt open dispensing chemists again to feed profits back into the system ?
Gassing Station | The Lounge | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff