The NHS is under pressure. Our budgets are not large enough to pay for all the treatments we would like, so we have to focus resources on essential things.
The NHS in Brent, Ealing, Harrow, Hillingdon, Hounslow, Hammersmith & Fulham, Kensington & Chelsea, and Westminster spent over £13 million in 2016 on products that can be bought without a prescription at community pharmacies.
We would like to spend less on medicines you can buy without a prescription so as to free up funds for other valuable NHS services.
So the NHS will no longer allow us to routinely prescribe medicines which are available to buy over the counter in pharmacies and, in the case of some medicines, in supermarkets and other shops too.
Some people will be exempt:
- Care home residents
- Individuals with funded care packages where a carer is required to administer a medicine or product
- Anyone officially declared homeless
- People with a diagnosis of dementia
- People with a diagnosed learning disability.
For more details on this scheme click here
Here is a list of medicines we have to ask you to buy