How hard is it to get a prescription right

jannergirl said:

Feel like a NHS scrounger ,69 years old .and am paying for my own medication ,EX- blood strips ..

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Appreciate you have to buy your own meter and strips, which is annoying as the better we control our condition the chesper it is for the NHS in the long term, but why are you paying for your own medication as I thought prescriptions were free for anyone over 60 - at the moment anyway.

You are right ,prescription are free ,my Dr will not give me one for anything to do with my diabetes .I do have a letter from the surgery stating I am diabetic which enables me to get my kit VAT free from the chemist

There are 3 main reasons why people get free prescriptions in England [ignoring parts of UK where everyone gets free prescriptions]:
Age - under 16 or over retirement pension age
Low income - on certain means tested benefits
Medical - in case of diabetes, if on medications
If you're retirement age and not taking medications for diabetes, you will have an uphill struggle to get GP to prescribe blood glucose tests strips. Letter so you don't pay VAT may, sadly, be as much help as you will get.

copepod said:

Please don't chuck the wrongly prescribed insulin, nor give it back to pharmacy, as they'd have to chuck it.
Instead, please post to IDDT, who will send it to someone with diabetes in a developing country, where insulin is not easilt available and costs are way beyond what mpost people can afford. See http://iddt.org/here-to-help/iddt-campaigning/iddt-campaigns-to-help-people-in-developing-countries Scroll down to section headed Collection of insulin and other supplies.

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I sent my in date - unneeded insulin to IDDT .
Heard it helped 11 kiddies .
Melted and humbled me to know this .
Just wished I could have sent them more ...

Sent in my old but in date Lantus & Novorapid when i came off them a few years ago, Felt good it wasn't wasted!