The NHS spends an awful lot of money on test strips. The value of 10 x 50 Contour test strips is over £100, so the strips should be returned to the pharmacy for re-using and you need to advise your GP you don't need as many as you are prescribed.
How many more people out there are hoarding test strips?
My diabetes has never been well controlled and I have learnt today that I am now suffering from background retinopathy. With my previous GP, I was prescribed Life scan one touch test strips which fitted a variety of different meters that I had bought or been supplied with, so I had different meters in different places, one in the car, one at work, one at home and usually one in my handbag. This worked well for me and because the software for downloading accepted readings from al the meters I could be fairly sure of getting a comprehensive picture of my results. My GP wasn't particularly interested as I couldn't record insulin intake or carbohydrate so the records were really just for me.
When I moved and joined a new practice, I was given the meter of choice, which again only recorded BG results, and I wasn't given the data cable or software to download the readings, nor was I ever asked to download these at the surgery.
I have now been sent a free Contour next USB meter, which allows me to record BG results, Insulin intake and carbohydrate intake, so with that and the Carbs and Cals app on my iphone, I am now getting some useful data. Despite this, the local PCT does not support the provision of the test strips for this meter, so I am buying my own at a cost of rrp £27, or buying from ebay at a lesser cost. Incidentally it is a criminal offence to sell NHS products privately, so all those people I have bought from are breaking the law.
So.....where does this leave me. Frustrated that the NHS will not give me the means to monitor my diabetes with a meter that works for me, cross that the 'one size fits all' mentality treats me like an idiot who can't assess the value of the technology for myself and make a reasoned choice about what would suit me best, despite many years evidence that my diabetes need vigilant monitoring in order to reach the proscribed HbA1C levels, cholesterol and blood pressure readings required by the NHS and rigidly enforced by my GP, puzzled that the ability to download readings is not used more widely by the clinicians who are treating my diabetes, and generally feeling that the NHS has not helped me very much at all.
Any comments?