Prescription fee fiasco IS unfair

LAST week I wrote about how prescription charges can be incredibly expensive when you tot them all up, with some patients forced to pay thousands every year.

Surprisingly, I had a number of letters questioning my facts.

Readers drew my attention to the pre-payment system, which lets patients who rely on lots of medications pay a set fee of about £108 annually, or £30 every three months.

I am afraid they are wrong. The truth is that pre-payment cards are not available to every patient, as many pharmacies and GPs don’t offer them. Recent research shows that two-thirds of people with longterm conditions don’t have the cards, and one in five patients don’t even know they exist.

So patients will have to fork out thousands every year – and I know several in this situation.