Health Board Fiasco
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Posts
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Reading the various Wrexham.com reports of the meeting between the Council and Health Board it is abundantly clear that the management are not fit for purpose. The answers were more woolly that a shepskin rug.
The risks of appallingly low service must surely increase the risk to patients – each and everyone of us who have been taxpayers for years should expect a good quality health care service in the 21st Century.
I would urge every resident in Wrexham – whether your surgery is due to lose its GP or not (your might not be going just yet but for how long will they stay?) contact the Health Minister , AMs etc.
Cabinet Secretary [email protected]
Local AMs [email protected] [email protected]
First Minister [email protected]This is not just about money it is about developing a culture were the staff want to work and stay in the area and not feel so pressured they will go over the boarder to England.
WE are also heading potentially for a massive shortage of front line staff if Brexit results in reverse migration for many health care professionals back to European countries. We don’t have the qualified staff just waiting in the wings ti take up the jobs
The Welsh Assembly certainly needs to look into these issues that are happening across Wales, but this is not something happening in isolation and the NHS is under severe strain across the UK.
Loss of local GP services through closures and mergers across England is also rife under Jeremy Hunt’s Flying Circus. Here’s a map of areas suffering from GP losses and their severity.
http://www.gponline.com/map-gp-practice-mergers-closures-nhs-england/article/1439293
Issues in SNP-led Scotland with GP surgeries requiring up to £1bn in repairs and risk closure if they can’t afford to pay it.
GP practice closure issues in Northern Ireland
http://www.gponline.com/general-practice-parts-northern-ireland-one-closure-collapse/article/1432598
The whole NHS is under strain.
Totally free prescriptions for all was introduced by the Labour run Welsh Assembly, resulting in large sums of money being spent by NHS Wales on drugs that can be bought for a few pence over the counter. Is it time to save money by stopping free prescriptions for generic drugs available over the counter for under one or two pounds? NHS Wales spends over £400,000 per year on paracetamol alone. Maybe if the Minister for Health produced figures for the potential saving and published a plan for how that money could be better spent in the NHS the public might be minded to accept the proposal.
The vast oversubscribing of prescription drugs rather than getting to the root causes can also reduce costs long term — treatments for depression because someone has financial problems is not the solution. Prescribing medication for someone in a chaotic lifestyle of drugs, roofless etc is a waste as they cant cope with taking tablets when they should, have no control mechanisms and generally the medication is likely to be sold on the streets.
Tablets such as Valium (Vallies – street name) are being sold for £1 a time, unwanted Methadone is £5 for 250ml- how can people get prescriptions and then sell medication on for cash.
There are so few checks and balances in prescribing that the streets are awash with prescription drugs being sold on.[quote quote=138676]Totally free prescriptions for all was introduced by the Labour run Welsh Assembly, resulting in large sums of money being spent by NHS Wales on drugs that can be bought for a few pence over the counter. Is it time to save money by stopping free prescriptions for generic drugs available over the counter for under one or two pounds? NHS Wales spends over £400,000 per year on paracetamol alone. Maybe if the Minister for Health produced figures for the potential saving and published a plan for how that money could be better spent in the NHS the public might be minded to accept the proposal.
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Surely if these drugs can be bought for pennies then they are also only costing NHS Wales pennies, or even less as they can buy in bulk, so what’s the problem?The issue over some drugs costing pennies such as Paracetamol and Aspirin is not the issue the big excessive cost is that a Pharmacist will get the same payment fee per prescription from WG regardless of the value of the products being dispensed.
There is a unit cost per prescription and then a fee depending on number of items dispensed
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