UK Private Prescription Charges: Shop Around To Prevent Exploitation By Sherlock Doctors

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prescription medication

A private prescription charge in the UK is funded by the patient rather than the National Health Service (NHS).   There is no fixed price a GP can charge for this prescription.  It is up to a GP to determine how much he or she considers reasonable for prescribing medication privately.  While many GP’s are reasonable when making such a private prescription some GP’s are not reasonable. 

These GP’s can charge their patients for private prescription more than what the drug may cost the patients.  I realised this when I attempted to get a private prescription for Malarone from my GP.  Malarone is a drug for preventing malaria associated with mosquito bites in areas such as Africa.  The GP surgery asked me to pay £20 to get the prescription for this drug.  I refused to make this payment because I considered it too high.

I went to a supermarket to purchase the drug instead.  At the supermarket I paid £15 for 15 Malarone tablets which is £5 less than the £20 demanded by the surgery for the private prescription.  If I can do it, anyone else can too.

The process of getting a private prescription from a non-surgery or supermarket is straightforward.   First you have to make a free appointment with the pharmacy consultant.  Second the consultant will establish your suitability for the drug.  This includes asking you questions such as why you need the drug and whether you are allergic to any drug.  Based on the response the consultant gets from you, he or she can either prescribe the drug for you or advise you why the drug is not suitable for you. 

This evidence that it can cost patients less to get private prescriptions from superstores than from the GP surgery undermines the justification for the extortionate rates charged by GP’s for private prescriptions.  After all, GP’s are among the highest paid professionals in the UK.  An average GP in the UK earns up to £100,000.00 per year which is far more than what the vast majority of people can earn for three years. 

In addition, making a private prescription does not cost a GP a fortune.  All that is involved is just for the GP to look at the patient medical record and determine whether the drug in question is suitable for the patient.

I think it is right time for the General Medical Council to step in and provide explicit guidelines on private prescriptions by GP’s.  Leaving this issue unresolved will mean leaving patients to continue to suffer at the hands of greedy Doctors.

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