Can't eat due to prescription tax

Working my way through the 800+ unread entries on my RSS reader, I came across this entry on the BBC news site:

"A poll by Macmillan Cancer Support suggests nearly half of cancer patients in England are being forced to cut back on basic necessities in order to pay for their prescriptions.

Breast cancer survivor Amanda Whetstone says she regularly skips breakfast and lunch to save money to pay for her prescriptions."

(The patient interviewed was unable to save up to pay for the £102.50 12 month prepayment, and was unaware of the  monthly direct debit option.)

 Us in hospital rarely have to deal with prescription charges, the occasional outpatient will fall into the grey area between the young healthy single item patient and those who are automatically exempt.  However it is still a major annoyance that a great deal of the time that a patient interacts with community pharmacy (and hence our profession) involves the prescription charge, a direct contradiction to the "free at point of use" principle of the NHS and a reinforcement of the pharmacist-as-shopkeeper image.

More needs to be done to convince the government to reduce the effect of the prescription tax on patients.   Where else would a similar charge on public services be acceptable?  £6 for every item you discussed with the GP, £6 for every call to the emergency services?

21-8-8