Question about NHS and medication coverage

[muriel_volestrangler]

1. For most medications, there's a standard per prescription charge of £7.85

Various groups get free prescriptions, such as children, over 60s, pregnant women, and people on benefits. If you're getting a lot of prescriptions, you can pay for a period for all of them.

http://www.nhs.uk/nhsengland/Healthcosts/pages/Prescriptioncosts.aspx

The controversy comes in because some medications are not covered by the NHS. NICE,the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence, evaluates treatments such as drugs, and decides if they are effective enough for a type of treatment - an evaluation which considers the price to the NHS as well as the clinical effectiveness (and can also mean a drug is approved for some circumstances, but not others - it might be accepted as effective for one type of cancer, but still thought unproven for another, and so restricted to the first).

http://www.nice.org.uk/page.aspx?o=AboutGuidance