NHS. Photograph by Elliott Brown
England remains the only part of the UK to still charge for prescriptions on the NHS. Scotland,Northern Ireland, and Wales have all abolished prescription charges in recent years, and the question put forward is this: should England follow the trend set by the other countries within the UK and abolish prescription charges?
The concept of free universal healthcare is held in high regard within the UK, with people being generally proud of the NHS and the service it provides. However, funding the NHS is a mammoth task, and the question of raising the money required for its funding is in constant debate. The issue has come back into the spotlight with Scottish Labour leader Johann Lamontarguing that prescriptions should not be simply given out as a universal benefit for all, and that those that can afford to pay should contribute to the costs.
In Scotland, recent figures show that NHS prescriptions cost £1.18 billion over the period 2011-12. This seems like a huge amount to charge members of the public. However, prior to abolishing prescription charges, the system was based on charging those that could afford to pay, and this remains the case in England: children, the elderly, pregnant women, cancer patients, and those suffering from some long term illnesses are exempt from prescription charges. Also exempt are those on certain benefits, and as such, the only people that really have to pay for prescriptions are those that can afford it.
It has been shown that in Scotland alone, the Scottish government will lose out on an estimated £57 million a year, this figure being the cost that those eligible for paying prescriptions would have contributed to the total cost of prescriptions to the NHS. Further to this, the total number of prescriptions being dispensed has increased following the removal of charges and the likelihood is that this figure is set to increase. If England were to follow suit, it would need to raise approximately £450 million in order to cover the costs of free prescriptions. Given that we are living in a period of austerity, it seems an unlikely move to make, for a policy that simply benefits on principle and not in practice. Those that require free prescriptions in England receive free prescriptions. Those that can afford to pay the costs of a prescription charge do so, and this money is put back into the NHS.
The money to fund the NHS has to come from somewhere, the point being that a removal of prescription charges may simply mean an increase in taxation in other areas. The current system used in England seems to work, and while the concept of free prescriptions for all may be a principle for some, the effects of introducing it on such a large scale in England may damage the economy, which in turn may result in damage to the NHS. The cost of introducing free prescriptions in England would be equivalent to the salary costs of 18,000 nurses. As such, the money raised by charging for prescriptions in England goes a long way to helping the NHS run.
Overall, as mentioned previously, the list of people exempt from prescription charges in England is extensive. The result being that only the healthy and the wealthy have to pay their way. This seems like a fair system which works in two ways. Firstly, those that can afford to pay will help fund the NHS and keep it as a system for those that need it and can’t afford to pay. Secondly, those that are suffering from long-term illness or on very low income do not have to suffer financially as a result. Free universal healthcare may be a founding principle of the NHS, but at the current time, it would seem that until more can be done to address the deficit in England, full realisation of this utopian ideal may be a long way off.
Written by Daniel Moran
