PRESCRIPTIONS

According to a letter printed in a Romford free paper, there will be new dispensing regulations from January 2010. Pharmacies, will apparently, be expected to replace a brand drug named on a prescription with one that is cheaper.

According to that correspondent, this is part of the Department of Health's 2009 pharmaceutical regulations scheme agreement.

Again. quoting from this letter, pharmacists will not have to consult the patient or the doctor who wrote the prescription. This, the NHS estimate will save £40m a year.

The correspondent goes on to outline the fact that there are many people for example, who suffer from serious heart conditions and who rely upon their prescribed drug to provide them with some quality of life. Without that drug, their condition would deteriorate.

The correspondent goes on:-"If a pharmacist decides on his own volition to change the prescription drug to one that is cheaper, how will he/she know whether or not it could create serious side effects that could prove detrimental to the patient's well being?"

The writer goes on to state that it is the doctor who should specify the patient's medication, not a pharmacist or a government economist. The government should think again.

We think most pensioners would be most grateful for the report above and agree entirely with the correspondent's fears.

Once again, we are faced with a Government apparently willing to save costs at the likely expense of the patient. This is a feature found in privatization schemes where costs become paramount above the safety and health of the patient.

We thank Mr. Cyril North most sincerely for voicing his very appropriate concerns.

This is a matter of which Pensioners should be made fully aware. The fact that a pensioner's health could be gambled with in this way must be fully recognised and challenged at all levels. A Pensioner's health is more delicate than that of a younger person and is much more vulnerable to change and therefore must not be placed at risk just because the Government wish to cut a few corners. Let the savings be applied elsewhere.

While on the subject of Prescriptions, pensioners may have found that their pharmacist appears to change the manufacturer of their regular pills. For instance blood pressure pills may be provided and coloured pink but the next month's prescription may contain pills of a different colour and size. This happens to the Writer quite often.

We feel that this is a bad practice since some elderly folk are often susceptible to change and become confused by seeing a tablet of a different colour or size.

We believe this practice stems from the fact that the chemist may have different arrangements with different suppliers.

So it is a good idea for patients to watch carefully the boxes and medications they receive from the chemists, and carers should also be wary on their charge's behalf and ensure that the same type of pill and dosage is being proffered.

ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING 2009

This is scheduled for Saturday 18th April at Somers Town Community Centre 150 Ossulston Street, Kings Cross, London NW1 1EE commencing at 10.30 a.m. with registration at 10.00 a.m. Lunch will be provided. Nominations and Motions no later than 7th April please.

This is the most important meeting of the year so try and make it if you can.

POST OFFICES

There is much distress being suffered by Pensioners throughout the country and this distress is not limited to Pensioners only; Mothers with benefits, the unemployed and Health Benefits are very much affected by the closure of Local and Main Post offices. Many old folk are having to travel miles to collect their pensions or arrange transport by car particularly where public transport does not operate at all as in most rural communities.

This is a callous disregard of the needs of the elderly and flies in the face of all government protestations of its concern that Pensioners should not suffer. They ARE suffering.

The Pension payout system has worked successfully for years but like so many other aspects and services of the Post Office has been re-jigged to suit the motives and agenda of Westminster.

Paying your TV licence or other bills is now being done through PAY POINTS. What is not generally known is that PAYPOINT is actually a private company- American. This is just another example of privatization being secretly ushered in. It seems quite clear that the Post Office is being deprived of its ability to serve the public on many fronts and this will of course, eventually result in this Institution's complete failure. The cry will be that it is no longer viable. If it is not a viable concern, then this is only because there has been a systematic run-down of its ability to function, and this run-down has been initiated, it seems, by the Government.

LONG LIVE THE POST OFFICE. LONG LIVE THE SUB-POST OFFICE
(Picture of anti-closure campaigner in the Potteries area)

THE NHS -- WATCH THIS SPACE!!!

Hospital beds are currently being cut back at an alarming rate, comparable to the Thatcher onslaught in the 80s.

Over 7% of emergency and acute short stay beds have disappeared in the last 2 years, and long stay specialist beds, particularly needed by the elderly, which have been in short supply for many years, have had further cuts amounting to over 20% loss in four years.

The cuts have not been evenly made and some areas have fared worse than others; London has been particularly targeted and has lost 11% of acute beds and 37% of long term and elderly care beds in the last six years. Mental Health and maternity beds have also had severe cuts.

As pensioners, the disabled and poorer families struggle to pay their heating and fuel bills, the likelihood of hospital admissions due to cold related illnesses this winter increases, but the Government seems to have its fingers crossed for a very mild winter (with snow in October?)!!!

The streamlining of hospitals and services is all part of the unspoken intention to make the NHS attractive to the private sector, hospitals are now run like a private business with talk of accumulating surpluses! This does not provide a more accessible service in spite of the platitudes of managers and politicians. The private sector cherry picks the easier conditions and treatments of the less complicated surgery, but chronic illness, major surgery and emergencies plus all the complications will still be left to the NHS. The Private Treatment Centres already operating to much applause because of the lack of waiting are undercutting the NHS and taking money and staff from the NHS. The Private Finance Initiative built hospitals and services which present the private sector with rich pickings for many years with very little risk, is destabilising the monetary control of the NHS hospitals, some of which will be downgraded, some will close, others will be handed over for the privateers to manage. Scrutiny of what is going on apace all over London and the South is difficult,- no elected representatives,no community health councils.

The Primary Care Trusts are not amenable to community pressure, the members being more afraid of the loss of their own positions and salaries if they do not toe the line as set down by Ministers; however, persistent pressure and campaigners can and does have an effect in some cases, and there is also a body unpublicised and little known called the OVERSIGHT & SCRUTINY COMMITTEE" who should be approached by campaigning groups who are trying to save hospitals and services and are underwhelmed and suspicious of alterations in community provision.

Contributed by BETTY COTTINGHAM (GLPA)