Prescription Charges Frozen In England

Prescription charges successful England will beryllium stiff this twelvemonth – for nan first clip since 2022.

The complaint for a azygous point will stay astatine £9.90 successful 2025-26, nan authorities has announced.

Three-month and yearly prescriptions prepayment certificates will besides beryllium stiff and existing exemptions will continue. Charges only use successful England arsenic prescriptions are free successful nan remainder of nan UK.

Nearly 9 successful 10 prescriptions successful England are already dispensed free of charge, pinch children, complete 60s, pregnant women, group pinch definite aesculapian conditions and those connected little incomes exempt from paying.

A three-month medicine prepayment certificate costs £32.05 while a 12-month certificate costs £114.50.

Rachel Power, main executive of Patients Association which campaigns for improvements successful wellness and societal care, said freezing nan charges was a "positive step".

But she warned that it did small to tackle nan "deep inequalities" successful what she described arsenic an outdated system.

She said nan aesculapian exemption criteria had remained virtually unchanged since nan precocious 1960s, pinch astir 3 cardinal group successful England surviving pinch semipermanent conditions not eligible for an exemption because they were not recognised 60 years agone aliases group seldom survived into adulthood.

Conditions which are not presently connected nan aesculapian exemption database see Parkinson's disease, cystic fibrosis and centrifugal neurone disease.

"We impulse nan authorities to spell further - to perpetrate to a afloat reappraisal of nan aesculapian exemption database and medicine charges," Ms Powers added.

Health is simply a devolved area of government. Prescription fees were abolished by Wales successful 2007, Northern Ireland successful 2010 and Scotland successful 2011 nether nan powers disposable to their respective governments.