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GP'S banned from prescribing costly diabetes drugs

J

justdavid

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Nottingham
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Diabetes.
Moor cost cutting, but this time it is Diabetic Patients who are getting hit, I am on Byetta and it as been helping me very well up to now, so if it is stopped what will happen next to us all ?, will GP's stand up for us, or will they do as they are told.

http://www.diabetes.co.uk/news/2011/Apr ... 54831.html

 
It is a worrying move David!

Nigel
 
That is a big concern for all involved . Hoping my Doc doesnt comply too harshly re the rosuvastatin , Cresor low dose is the only one I can tollerate , grim news indeed all round .
 
I've been on Januvia over the last month and it has virtually removed all my BS spikes keeping my BS under 10 seemingly all the time and I can eat slightly more normal meals. I'd hate to think I'd have to do without it and go on to insulin.
 
All I can suggest is that every one of us gets on to www.parliament.uk, where the email address of every MP and Lord is available, and lobbies anyone we thing may be of help - that is, your own MP, and Health Secretary or whatever, and so on.

Can anyone tell us whether there is any way of finding out (Freedom of Information, for instance?) which MPs are diabetic? Some of them, and the Lords, must be! Is there a 'Diabetes Champion'?

Viv 8)
 
this is part of the warm up to doctors controling their own bugets as the the nhs is being parted out to make way for privatization ,noticed the amount of adverts for private medical insurance latley ?

doctors now are doing more proceedurs in house as they get paid money for keeping it in house.
example,if you had to have a sist removed you would have been refered to the hospital [maxifacecial] for a minor opp ,but in the warm up to the budget hand over to the gp,s the pct does not fund minor opp,s at the hospitals any more .

they will tell you to see your doctor and get a special dispensation to get it done at the hospital .
tried to get to see a perdiatrist ? good luck with that one .

want to a diabetic nurse ? =well she,s due in next week as she is on contract and only comes once a month !

it,s all getting farmed out to the gp,s and they farm it out on contract .

when i went to see the dematolist for the biopsi he said he could not remove the sist as they dont get funded for it ,but he did offer to get it done privately by the same consultant who saw me on the nhs [nice ] .

as for getting your expensive drug treatments ,they are all going ,unless you want to go private !
 
Once they sort out the issue of signing off repeat prescriptions for stuff that isn't used because its probably easier than asking the patient to make an appointment... Just think of the millions they would save at that point, rather than trying to palm off cheap alternatives to drugs that work. :evil:
 
Politicians are like nappies and should be changed regularly for the same reason. :twisted:
 
I have been on Byetta for over two years and it has worked wonders and I had lost two stone and improved my blood sugars. On a recent visit to the diabetic clinic my weight had increased by two or three pounds and my blood sugars (Hb1ac) had remained the same over the previous three month period. I was urged to move onto insulin. Now I know why.
 
I am on Janumet and after seeing that this might be one of the Drugs that could be banned I asked my Diabetic Nurse last week, who had heard nothing about them banning it, but she checked how much it would cost to give me Metformin and Sitagliptin separately it is actually a little more expensive and not as effective as giving me the 2 in one tablet, which I would have thought should have been everyones main priority. On top of that instead of 1 tablet I would have to take 3, as I take a lot of tablets daily for other conditions another 3, I will be up to 15-20 daily, minimum. Do these people who advise the Government actually do any research, make you wonder. :roll:
 
I went to my MP who passed this troubling report onto Lord Howe, the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Department of Health. His response was very positive. I will paraphrase it below as all I have is a scanned copy of this letter

Our Policy is that clinicians acting within the scope of their of their clinical competence should be able to prescribe medicines in line with NICE guidance. I believe there may be some confusion in terminology : many PCT's develop lists of medicines that should be initiated by specialists rather than GP's. If we have evidence that any PCT is not following our policy then my advice is to take the matter directly to the CEO of the PCT. If the situation is not resolved then the matter should be escalated to the relevant Strategic Health Authority, which can involve the Department of Health

(the letter is signed) Earl Howe

I think this answers the question and I would be happy to provide a copy the letter to anyone who needs it

Robin Frowd
 

Very useful information. I'd love to see the whole letter. Can you scan it yourself and email it or post it on here as an attachment?

A question about the restrictions being imposed comes to mind. Of the medications on the hit list, are there alternative generic medications that are exactly the same but much cheaper? These become available when the brand name ( ie: the company who first developed and tested the medication and has to recover its costs) is now past it's 'it's all mine and no one else can produce it' limit? This same debate happened some years ago for the same reasons. It was not the medications that were banned but the prescription of them under the original, very expensive, brand name instead of using generic alternatives. The generics are often thought of as inferior or somehow different, but they are not. They have to be identical. The only difference is in some of the additives such as colourings as far as I am aware. Now someone who knows more is going to shoot me down and say that is not so, but I would like to see concrete evidence if that is the case. If generics are what is being proposed then there should be no problem, but I don't know if that is the case or not.

[quote="oobuc5"
doctors now are doing more proceedurs in house as they get paid money for keeping it in house.
example,if you had to have a sist removed you would have been refered to the hospital [maxifacecial] for a minor opp ,but in the warm up to the budget hand over to the gp,s the pct does not fund minor opp,s at the hospitals any more .

they will tell you to see your doctor and get a special dispensation to get it done at the hospital .
tried to get to see a perdiatrist ? good luck with that one .
![/quote]

I think you will find that this has always been the case. You have always had to go to your GP first to get referred for any hospital treatment. Also, many GP surgeries have, and have had for a long time, facilities for doing minor ops. For instance I had some rather pernicious warts surgically removed by the GP. Very simply and competently and it avoided a whole day lost attending the hospital fifteen miles away. Our GP's surgery is soon moving to new premises where they can have more facilities to do more in house. It will make them like a micro hospital and make it much easier for local people to stay local for simple and routine treatments. Why waste a hospital's precious time and resources doing things that GPs are perfectly competent to do? Let's be happy for the hospitals to do the work that can't be done by the GP. The GP will soon refer you to the hospital if he thinks the work needed is beyond his expertise or facilities. For instance...

(If you're sqeamish, skip the next paragraph.)

My warts nearly had to go to the hospital as they had penetrated the bone in my finger and the GP could not go that deep because the risk of infection was too high with his facilities. That information could not be known before he looked inside. (Although I had been fairly certain because bone pain is different - but the doctor couldn't know that my assumption was right - longer story there, but no criticism of the doctor.)

These plans for our local GP's surgery were in place long before the current government's existence, let alone their new NHS policies. They are ideas that have been ongoing for a long time and hugely encouraged by the last government. Remember their plans for the new 'super surgeries'? Perhaps these facilities are of more benefit to people living in rural areas as I do, where the hospital is fifteen miles away and a visit kills at least half a day, and a whole day for those who have to travel an hour each way on the very expensive hourly bus. Lucky us - we have a bus once an hour. Move a couple of miles out of town and there is no bus except the ring-and-ride one. A more comprehensive service from the GP will be very welcome.
 
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