Dear Sir or Madam,
I am writing as a patient to request further justification for your lack of provision of Freestyle Libre on prescription.
Clear guidance has been issued by RMOC (to which you refer in your most recent position paper) as to who should receive the Libre on prescription and in addition, guidelines for London have also been provided.
Yet you, as a committee, continue to prevaricate about providing access in South East London, hiding behind the excuse of “providing a more detailed plan” and “staff and patient training to provide safe and effective prescribing”. This seems to ignore the point that this product has been available for the general population to purchase for nearly four years.
For many users, who would already qualify under the London guidelines, the savings they would gain from not having to pay for the Libre themselves could easily be achieved by allowing prescriptions for those who asked for them and who meet the guidelines. This would also allow those people to continue to provide effective self care, reducing the long term cost to the NHS.
The requirement for “safe and effective prescribing” looks like an excuse to avoid innovation than a real requirement given the already widespread use of Libre.
Whilst I understand that for prescribing with new users, training is necessary for both patient and healthcare professionals, this should not be stopping Libre being prescribed for existing users, especially as it has been available in the NHS BSA tariff since November last year.
You have also placed no deadline on your decisions and your previous publications on this matter suggest that you’ll continue to use that to push out any decision for as long as you can.
Please can you explain, in a response to this email, the reticence of the South East London Area Prescribing Committee to adhere to London Regional Guidance in allowing prescription of the Libre, why you haven’t given yourselves a deadline to make a decision and why you think that the SE London APC knows more than national and regional bodies on this topic and feels the need to add another layer of bureaucracy to this process?
I’d be happy to attend your next APC meeting to take this point further.
Thanks in advance,
Yours faithfully,