Medical ranting

[triskellian]

About four years ago, I had a series of asthma attacks which ended with a few days in hospital, and a lot of meetings with doctors to discuss different medicines.

Since then, my asthma's been stable, so although I've seen doctors for other things in the meantime, no one's looked at my asthma. The surgery I go to has been getting increasingly insistent that I have to see the asthma nurse for a checkup, so I finally gave in and went yesterday.

And it made me angry...
I demonstrated that I know how to use my inhaler properly. I explained that my asthma was giving me no trouble at the moment. Against my wishes, I was weighed and measured (I have a deliberate policy of not knowing how much I weigh as part of my "trying to be sane about my body image" plan. Yes, I could have not looked. And, no, I haven't got either taller or shorter since my last checkup four years ago).

Apparently I am supposed to do this every year. Show up, be weighed and measured, breathe in from one tube (inhaler) and out into another (peak flow meter), and answer a bunch of dumb questions. I've had asthma my whole life, and it seems I can't be trusted to just get on with it on my own. If it changes, I'm perfectly capable of making an appointment with the doctor to talk about it then.

Next, I discover that the rules about prescriptions have changed and I'm now only allowed to have a prescription for one month's worth of medicine at a time (ie one inhaler, when I'm used to getting three). This means it costs me three times as much (the prescription fee is per medicine, not per item), and it means that every single month I have to go through the rigmarole of getting more medicine. I'm horribly disorganised about getting my medicine anyway; I don't fancy having a running-out-need-to-get-more crisis every month.

All of this is particularly galling in light of two facts. The first is that some chronic diseases entitle their sufferers to free prescriptions, but chronic asthma, despite its potentially life-threatening nature, isn't one of them.

And the second fact is that the big thing in asthma treatment is for sufferers to learn to manage their condition themselves so that it doesn't affect their lives. Which I was getting on with quite nicely until I started being forced to jump through bureaucratic hoops. Monthly prescriptions (and associated fees) and yearly checkups have much more of an impact on my life than my asthma itself does :-(

Comments

[smiorgan.livejournal.com]

Interesting. One question: why if the per-prescription length is 56 days do I get 100 days worth of medication every time I ask for it?

[onebyone.livejournal.com]

I guess: because PCTs aren't required to allow 28 day prescriptions only, that's just one tool at their disposal, and they can choose which kinds of prescriptions it applies to. Your kind of prescription is so rare compared with asthma that there's far less incentive to gouge more money out of your kind of prescription than out of asthma prescriptions.

This also explains how triskellian needs to negotiate in order to get what she wants:

your GP practice depends on you being ... happy with your treatment for part of their funding

So the question is how much of their funding, and what concessions it is worth your GP's while to make in order to keep it. OK, so GPs don't make the rules, they just enforces them, so it's a little unfair to give them grief. But you don't make the rules either, you just suffer at the pointy end of them, and this is your only means of feeding back to the person who did make them.

[cuthbertcross.livejournal.com]

Actually, if you did want to feed back, it's worth considering writing to the PCT to point out your dilemma and the inconvenience it causes you having to get scripts each month. Asking your GP nicely if you can have 2 inhalers at a time might work if you go in and discuss it with them face to face during a proper appointment (rather than requesting on the repeat script, with lacks a personal factor and may just get turned down.).

[triskellian]

Yep, I'm planning on talking to my GP about it the next time I go in.

And thanks for the background info - much appreciated!