MPs will be asked this week to end the “shocking” practice of making cystic fibrosis patients in England pay prescription charges for the drugs that they need to stay alive. The condition is the nation’s most common inherited, life-threatening disease and affects more than 7,000 people.
Prescription charges, first introduced in 1952, were abolished in 1965; then, when they were reintroduced in 1968, exemptions were made for those suffering from long-lasting ailments such as cancers, diabetes and epilepsy. But children with cystic fibrosis were not expected to live to adulthood and so the condition was not exempted.
As a result of new medicines and the creation of special physiotherapy regimes, cystic fibrosis patients now live well into their 40s.
“Medicine and society have moved on, so should the exemption list to reflect modern-day experience,” said Paul Maynard, the Conservative MP for Blackpool North and Cleveleys, who will call for an end to prescription charges for the disease at a special Commons debate on the illness this week. “As someone who has a long-term medical condition – epilepsy – it has always amazed me that adults with cystic fibrosis have to pay for their prescriptions whilst I do not.”
Source: The Guardian, 30 January 2022
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