The UK Government are currently consulting on aligning the prescription charge to the State Pension Age. 
The Prescription Charges Coalition oppose this proposal and are encouraging supporters to email their MP asking them to raise concerns about this with the Department of Health and Social Care.
Media pick up our concerns
Over the past few weeks the Coalition have shared our concerns about the proposal with various media outlets.
Our comments have been covered in The Daily Express and also on BBC Radio Humberside (from 3.16.30) after Labour councillors in North East Lincolnshire condemned the proposals. 
Take action
It's crucial the Government hear from people who will be affected, so please email your MP, sign the 38 degrees petition and respond to the consultation by 2 September. 

The UK Government are consulting on aligning the prescription charge with the State Pension Age. This would mean that people in England would need to pay for their prescriptions until they're at least 66 initially and this would rise as the State Pension Age does.
We are opposed to this proposal as we don't believe the impact of it has been properly assessed for:

• people with long term conditions who are not on the current exemption list
• women
• the over 60s
• diverse communities
• LGBTQ communities
• deprived communities

We will be submitting a response to the consultation, which closes on 2 September and encourage all supporters to share their views as well.

Last Thursday (1 April) the Coalition was mentioned in over 500 pieces of media coverage across the country, as we warned that the cost of a single prescription item could reach over £10 by 2025.
We managed to secure national coverage in The Metro, Daily Mirror, Daily Mail, MSN UK and across hundreds of regional publications.   
Many of our charity supporters also shared their support on their social channels using the hashtag #ReviewTheList 
We'll continue to campaign for the Government to review the prescription exemption list and scrap the charge for people with long-term conditions. 

Earlier this week the UK government announced they would increase prescription charges in England on 1 April 2021.

• A single item will rise by 20p to £9.35
• A 3-month pre-payment certificate will rise to £30.25 and 
• A 12-month pre-payment certificate will rise to £108.10.

Chair of the Coalition, Laura Cockram issued a comment that has been picked up by several publications Wales Online, Bolton News and The Pharmacist.
We will continue to campaign for the government to review the exemption list and scrap the charge for people with long-term conditions.  

​Emma had mitochondrial disease. It’s progressive and currently there is no treatment and no cure. There are only drugs to manage your symptoms and, with hope, prolong your life. Emma became ill at 21, at a time when the world should have been at her feet. She largely got her head around all that and dealt with her illness with tremendous courage, but she could not understand why she was also forced to struggle to pay for the prescriptions that were so essential to her when others were exempt. 

She worked reduced hours due to her illness and lived with her partner, a newly qualified nurse, so was not entitled to any help with charges.  The cost and injustice were too much for her to bear.  For her, the lack of exemption from prescription charges effectively invalidated her illness. It was as if the NHS was saying, ‘Other illnesses count, but yours doesn’t.’

When you support your child of any age through a serious illness, your desire to protect them grows ever stronger, at the same time your ability to do so grows weaker. When you can’t alter the big things – the illness, the prognosis, the pain your child is in – it becomes more important to try and at least change the things you can.  At first, we paid for the prescriptions ourselves, but Emma didn’t want dependence on her parents as an adult, so we decided to take it upon ourselves to collect Emma’s prescriptions and reluctantly, but purposely ticked the box that said she didn’t have to pay, because it seemed the least incorrect thing to do. We wanted to be held to account, to have our day in court, to pay the fine if we had to …  and to raise the profile of this injustice. We didn’t do it lightly, but couldn’t support such a system within the NHS – an NHS which we believed was about the burden of cost not falling on the long-term sick.

It’s astonishing that people with cancer had to pay prescription charges for their drugs until 2009 when cancer was added to the exemptions list ... the only time it’s been adjusted in 50 years. And yet people with illnesses just as devastating still pay for their vital prescriptions drugs every single day.  This is not about ‘my illness is worse than your illness’ in any way. This is about treating people fairly and equitably.
I have to speak for Emma and her feelings on this because she can’t: the illness that the prescription charge exemption didn’t acknowledge killed her last September, aged just 28. Her ‘long-term illness’ has ended all too soon.

The most we can hope for now is that Emma’s death will count. On Emma’s behalf, I ask you to please see how cruel and unjust it is to negate someone’s illness by not including it on the exemptions list.
We need outrage. We need the same outrage for Emma – and others like her with a whole variety of horrendous illnesses – that we’d have for people with cancer in this position. Having an unfair list of conditions which are exempt from prescription charges is simply not okay. 

We need a review. We need change – and we need it now.

Author: Christine Beal 
​
You can find out more about Emma's Mito Mission here 
​https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZVu61sFH6g

Parkinson’s UK took to the airwaves yesterday to make the case that prescription charges should be free for people with long-term conditions in England. John Hinson from Hull has Parkinson’s, he spoke to BBC Radio Humberside live in the studio and listeners were encouraged to join the debate throughout the programme. Our Co-Chair Matina Loizou, Senior Policy and Campaigns Adviser at Parkinson’s UK also spoke on the programme about the benefits of extending free prescriptions to all long-term conditions.

The story was also featured on BBC Look North, again with John talking about the fact that many people struggle to afford the pre-payment certificate and for others difficult choices must be made between buying their medicine or food for the family.  Matina discussed how our latest research shows that the NHS could save £20 million a year by scrapping just two conditions- Parkinson’s and IBD.

John said “I’ve got a condition that I’m going to have for the rest of my life. It’s going to get worse. I have to pay for my prescriptions- there’s something wrong there. It’s discrimination at the end of the day”  

Matina said “The NHS would actually save £20 million a year if they lifted prescription charges for people with just two conditions- Parkinson’s and inflammatory bowel disease…We think the system is unfair and out of date so we’re calling on the Government to look at the medical exemption list, review the situation and bring it up to date.”

You can catch up on BBC Radio Humberside until 16/10/2018
 You can catch up on BBC Look North (East Yorkshire and Lincolnshire) here until 7pm 19/9/2018

In May 2018, the York Health Economics Consortium published new findings that showed that scrapping prescription charges for just two long-term conditions (IBD and Parkinson’s) would save the NHS over £20 million a year.
Savings came from:

• 9% fewer A&E visits for people with Parkinson’s
• 11.4% less hospital admissions for people with Parkinson’s
• 7,149 less flares for IBD
• 3,887 fewer GP visits for people with Crohn’s Disease

These findings show us what we already suspected, scrapping prescription charges would in fact save NHS England money. At a time when budgets are tight, the Government should listen to evidence that shows the economic benefits of ending prescription charges for long-term conditions.

In just two days, on Sunday 10 June, the Medical Exemption List, which determines who is exempt from prescriptions charges and who must pay, will be 50 years old. In that time, advances in medicine have been remarkable, yet five decades on, the list remains largely unchanged. It is glaringly obvious that the list is no longer in step with the needs of people with long-term conditions.  

Throughout our campaign, we have heard from thousands of people, who have been forced to make impossible decisions so they can afford their life-saving medication.  These stories show the profound personal impact prescription charges have on people’s day-to-day lives and their ability to manage their condition safely.  
As we near the 50th anniversary, we look back at our campaign highlights and ahead at our future plans to keep the pressure on Government to scrap prescription charges for all long-term conditions.   

I was born in 1968 and so was the medical exemption list. This list decides who pays prescription charges and who doesn’t, but I didn’t have a say in getting Parkinson’s.

I was diagnosed with Parkinson’s aged 9, though I’ve had the symptoms since I was 7. Fortunately for me I had a working tax credit exemption until recently, which meant I didn’t have to pay for the more than 200,000 tablets I’ve taken in my lifetime.

Since losing that exemption I’ve had to ration my medication to spread the cost, prioritising the most urgent ones and leaving others for later. I now pay monthly through the prepayment scheme. It’s stressful because I can’t live without my drugs. I’ve been on levodopa for so long that my body couldn’t cope without it.

I’ve had to start counting the pennies more and more. I resent paying it as it could still cost me thousands throughout my life and there is nothing I can do about it! I’ve worked for as long as possible and paid my national insurance contributions, so it’s galling to think that I’m being treated differently to other people whose long-term conditions are exempt.

Last summer I shared my story as part of the Prescription Charges Coalition launch of their report Still Paying the Price which found that among those like myself currently paying for prescriptions, a third had not collected medications due to the cost. Others reported skipping or reducing their doses to save money – leading to worsening health, time off work and emergency hospital admissions.

New research published just last week by the York Health Economics Consortium now shows that for people with Parkinson’s (and inflammatory bowel disease), charging for prescriptions is a false economy to the NHS. By removing prescription charges, people like me are better able to stay well and avoid health complications- which would mean fewer GP visits and emergency hospital admissions. For each working age person with Parkinson’s the NHS would save £93 per year by scrapping prescription charges.

Next week the medical exemption list will be 50 years old- but I won’t be celebrating. It is time to change this unfair and outdated system. Add your voice by signing up to the Thunderclap.

​Matt Eagles @MattEagles