Scrapping free prescription charges for people over 60 and raising the qualifying age to 66 could have a devastating impact on the health of tens of thousands of older people, new analysis by Age UK suggests.
In a joint open letter urging the government to reconsider proposals to scrap free prescriptions for over-60s in England, 20 healthcare organisations expressed “deep shared concerns” that the move would leave many patients unable to afford medication, intensifying existing health inequalities and having a devastating impact on some older people’s health.
A Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) consultation on proposals to raise the qualifying age for free NHS prescriptions in England from 60 to 66, in line with the state pension age, will close on Thursday after generating more than 32,000 responses.
Signatories of the letter, including Age UK, the Royal College of GPs (RCGP), and the Royal Pharmaceutical Society (RPS), warn the proposals would be likely to “have a lasting adverse affect on the half (52%) of 60- to 64-year-olds with one or more long term conditions”, hitting those who are poorly and on low incomes the hardest.
The Office for National Statistics estimates there are more than 3.7 million 60- to 65-year-olds in the UK. The letter highlights that, by the DHSC’s own impact analysis, two-thirds – 66% – would be rendered ineligible for free prescriptions, and 15% wouldn’t fully adhere to taking their prescribed medicine as a result.
Caroline Abrahams, the charity’s director, warned some would be patients reluctant to act on symptoms or get a diagnosis, for fear of being unable to afford long-term, symptom-relieving or, in some cases, life-saving medication.
Prof Martin Marshall, RCGP’s chair of council, said introducing an additional cost for over-60s managing long-term health conditions would “disproportionately affect a large group of patients who are on low incomes but just above the threshold for financial help with the costs of their medication”.
Patients who are less financially well-off would be discouraged from managing their health proactively, Marshall said, and could mean they only present to their GP when their problems are far worse. This is compounded by the long wait for treatment many patients have already experienced because of the challenges of the last 18 months, he added.
While the DHSC estimates the proposals could add up to £300m to the NHS budget by 2027, the letter warns this figure represents “a tiny fraction of the NHS £212.1bn budget for 2020/21” and fails to take into account the impact on local health services. “The money the government raises if it goes ahead with this proposal will be easily outweighed by the additional costs to the NHS if, as is predictable, some people fail to take their medication and become sicker, more quickly,” Abrahams said. “Tens of thousands may require hospital treatment due to rationing what they take.”
Thorrun Govind, chair of the RPS English pharmacy board, said the proposal amounted to a “tax on the sick at exactly the time [in their lives] at which they may be needing more medicines” and called for prescription charges in England to be scrapped for all age groups, as is the case in Scotland and Wales.
A DHSC spokesperson said: “90% of community prescriptions in England are free of charge, and people don’t pay if they are on a low income, over 60, or have certain medical conditions.
“The upper age exemption has not changed since 1995 and that is why we are consulting on restoring the link between this and the state pension age. No final decisions have been made and we will publish the consultation response in due course.”
