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Another £20 buying test strips

  • Thread starter Thread starter Deleted member 45091
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Average testing is 9/10 times a day diabetes is bit over the place, aload one box a week.. struggling at the min on esa £105 per week and paying £20 every other week or so is geting too much, over the past year spent litterally hundreds of pounds. i feel comfortable testing regular checking for hypos/hypers etc so why cant they understand it, tried pals etc said they couldnt do anything ask specialist and just says up to GP. but as struggling with diabetes is up and down and being off work got 5100 pound for whole of last year so paying for tests strips on that income coming in is taking the ****. so off the film me myself and irene Hanks coming out when go to see gp, so hopefully if i kick off do something crazy get sent down maybe i can get as many strips as i need on the inside. well thats i feel anyway but iam a wimp deep down
 
I think we have been here before Danny. All gp surgery's were sent a letter from the Dept of Health back in February regarding test strip restrictions for type 1's, here it is for you to print off and take with you when you next see your gp:

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/s ... es.pdf.pdf
 
LittleWolf said:
I think SD Codefree does the cheapest strips x


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Thank you very much for the letter. Just off to see my diabetic nurse for my annual check. This letter will come in handy. After changing my meter I was 1/4 of my normal amount of test strips my repeat prescription was declined with "you've just had some"

:thumbup:
 

Do you drive? If so argue tat they are not providing enough for you to follow DVLA guideline for testing before driving.
 
Hey I didn't think type 1's had to pay for prescriptions? I have a medical exemption so don't have to pay for any of mine. Maybe you should find out as that's an awful lot of money for something you need!!


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Hi danny, have you tried to get a medical exemption certificate?
One of these could help with the costs as it means you won't have to pay for your prescriptions, all you need to do is go to your GP's surgery and ask for a medical exemption form fill it out and hand it back to them the will get it signe and send it away for you (or at least that's what my GP's surgery did.) Then all you have to do is remember to take it when you go for your prescription, it take about 7-10 working days to come.
Hope this helps
 
Seriously_Sax1989 said:
Hey I didn't think type 1's had to pay for prescriptions? I have a medical exemption so don't have to pay for any of mine. Maybe you should find out as that's an awful lot of money for something you need!!


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Danny is aware that type 1's get free prescriptions, the problem he is having is with allocation of test strips from his gp, some mistakenly believe that we can get by on 2 strips a day and won't prescribe the right amount for us to manage our diabetes.
 
Oh right I see. Yeah admittedly I had to ask to have 2 boxes (each containing 2 bottles with about 25 sticks in) but even that didn't last too long.


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Seriously_Sax1989 said:
Oh right I see. Yeah admittedly I had to ask to have 2 boxes (each containing 2 bottles with about 25 sticks in) but even that didn't last too long.
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Is that all, I would have to put a repeat prescription in every week

Print off the letter in the link I posted earlier and show it to your gp or practice manager.
 
I've said it before in another thread - the Government should tackle the cost of these strips! 250K T1's in England testing let's say 4 times a day minimum on average. That's 1M strips a day. 365M a year. Codefree do 200 for £20.99 (I had a quick glance on Google) and that's £0.105 a strip. You can't tell me there's not a massive profit margin in that?

It may already be the case but surely when it comes to supplying essential products the Government should have an open book policy with it's suppliers and negotiate a reasonable profit margin.
 
Reading your post makes me feel very fortunate.
I receive 300 ( and use them all) blood strips per month and never had a problem increasing them from 200.
 
Hi all yes i do have a medical exception certificate, cant argue i need more strips to drive as i dont. read the article and yea i will try that, like i said before i do get one box of 50 strips per week that i can collect on a Thursday the doctor says that is more than enough i average testing around 8/10 times a day. checking for hypos/hyper etc in the doctors eyes they will issue me this amount and basically if i need any more thats my choice. Maybe my diabetes has not improved dramatically, so every other week i run out just the day before i am aload to collect them, just going every week is annoying. Some people can test just several times a day, but thats what i feel comfortable with so i do buy extra, along with the lancets as they will only issue me a box of 200 a month. Think its just the times i used to get 8 boxes a time which would last me a while. I think the doctor wants to see that the strips are used effienciently but as my sugars are abit erratic and i can feek hungry shaky etc when they are high thats why i like to keep a close check on them.
 
I think it's a real shame, I have to test every 2 hours but the hospital know this and give me enough strips. I live in Belgium so I have to pay everything but I have medical insurance so it's all reimbursed and the hospital bills are sent directly to the insurance company. I also have a pump and have had 3 beta cell transplants which is why I must test every two hours. You must insist that in order to maintain a good balance you need to test more often. Surely the doctor would rather you had more strips than the complications of nerve damage, kidney damage and potential blindness. Good luck, I hope you can get more strips.
 
I think it would help if the NHS stuck to one suppler. Put a tender out to all the companies that manufacture monitors and test strips. As a previous poster roughly worked out, a min of 365million strips a year.
Supply the same model of monitor to all diabetics. Imagine the huge reduction in cost.
Trouble is at present there are so many variants being supplied throughout the country. This may not suit everyone as people will say things like " I will only use X machine with X strips" but it makes business sense.


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