The Royal Pharmaceutical Society (RPS) has warned that rising prescription charges will harm patients.

Chair of the RPS England Board Sandra Gidley said that the risks of increasing the cost of prescriptions for patients are “well known”.

“If you can’t afford your medicines, you become more ill, which leads to poor health and expensive and unnecessary hospital admissions,” she stated. Ms Gidley was speaking in response to government plans to increase the amount it costs for a standard NHS prescription from April.

It currently costs £8.80 for a prescription in England, but this is set to rise by 20p to £9 from 1 April this year.

Ms Gidley also revealed that pharmacists are asked every day by patients which of their prescriptions “they could do without” because they can’t afford all of their medication. “No one should be faced with a financial barrier to getting the medicines they need,” she stated.

If you live in Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland, prescriptions are free, and Ms Gidley said it would be much simpler if this was also the case in England.

The government, however, was keen to stress that although the charge for a single prescription is set to go up, the cost of three-month and 12-month prescription prepayment certificates (PPCs) would remain at their current levels of £29.10 and £104 respectively.

But it would seem that Ms Gidley and the RPS are correct in that prescription charges are harming patient health.

Research carried out by Asthma UK found that of those who have to pay for their medications to prevent asthma attacks, 76 per cent struggle to afford them. 2.3 million people in the country suffer from the condition.

The survey conducted by the charity found that over half (57 per cent) of those who have to pay for their prescriptions admitted to skipping taking it because of the cost, with a quarter revealing that this led to an asthma attack.

On average, asthma prescriptions are thought to cost £100 per year, but the charity estimates that there are thousands of people in England who are paying over £400 per year for their medication.

Director of research and policy at Asthma UK Dr Samantha Walker commented: “Asthma is a serious condition that kills three people every day in the UK and the best way for people to stay well is to take their life-saving medication, often for their entire life.”

She added that it’s unfair that so many people with asthma are having to pay for the medication to keep them healthy, pointing out that it leads to hospital admissions, and in the worst cases death, when people fail to take their medication because they are worried about the cost of it.

The charity has launched a campaign, entitled: Stop Unfair Asthma Prescription Charges and is putting pressure on the government to remove prescription charges for those who suffer from the condition.

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