Almost 50% of adults in England are on prescription medicines

[banana]

Symptomatic of the way in which British folk take care of their body (they don't particularly), the lifestyle, diet, and relationship with alcohol.

[Addie]

Symptomatic of the way in which British folk take care of their body (they don't particularly), the lifestyle, diet, and relationship with alcohol.

The feeling I get from GP's is that a lot of people don't want to take responsibility for their own health and leave that on the doorstep of the GP.

Better to have free prescriptions for the middle classes than spend the millions on getting rid if the need for food banks.

It's a masterstroke.

How would you regulate that? Probably costs more.

[Grim O'Grady]

How much of the NHS budget goes to the pharmaceutical companies? Why can't they do their own pills & potions? Surely they have scientists in the NHS somewhere in laboratories an shit eh?

Grimbo

[19QOS19]

According to the bbc there are around 20 prescriptions per person per year on average in Scotland.

That sounds utterly fecking crazy to me.

How is it even possible unless every refill of a repeat prescription counts seperately?

It's surely counted separately you'd imagine. If not, then it wouldn't make sense and the figures wouldn't come out like that. Eg. If me and 10 folk had 15/20 drugs all count as 1 prescription then it's 1 prescription for 1 person. Add 10 folk who don't have a prescription and find the average of the 20 and it works out as half a prescription for every person. Do it with all the individual drugs added up and divided by the 20 then the average would be more alarming. If it's in fact the complete opposite to what I've just said and all an individuals drugs count as 1 prescription then by christ that is scary! (Apologies if that's complete gibberish. I explain things in a way I can understand but others tend not to when written down; no pill for dyslexia yet no?? :-( )

I imagine (know) a big area where prescriptions are high are in mental health. You tend to find when people are really unwell mentally that their physical health can deteriorate as a result. Be that through lack of healthy eating knowledge or just plain personal neglect. I work with people who have some really severe mental health issues, yet the majority of their prescription is to maintain their physical health.

[ChiockCharnlery]

You ever lived in England, m8? Hardly a surprise to be honest.

Place is just an overcrowded, more repressed, even more ignorant, kneejerk and irrational (if you can believe it) version of Scotland.

If I wasn't doped up to my eyeballs here I'd have tossed myself off one of the many nearby tower blocks if I had managed to get to the top without getting stabbed 40 times wih a hypodermic needle.

If I was in England (with the far greater density and number of similar type people) I probably still would despite the medication.

[jagfox]

It would seem a lot of the prescriptions are for illnesses or conditions that could be reduced by an improvement in diet and lifestyle choices, e.g. diet, lack of exercise, smoking, drinking and unsolicited drug abuse.

There are a rise in wellness clinics/pharmacies particularly down South not heard of many up here. Obviously not as clear as that as other issues can effect peoples overall health, such as mental health issues or being trapped in the poverty cycle coupled with poor health education.

There are also issues, I assume with incorrect diagnosis and subsequent prescriptions. Anti-biotics still seem to be issued for all sorts of ailments such as colds and other viruses when in fact they are only suitable for bacterial infections. Other issues would be drug courses for various mental conditions as the dosage and type of medication can be quite haphazard.

[ChiockCharnlery]

Perhaps a little controversial but this sort of thing is kinda part of the package when humans in the developed world have become so intent on battling natural selection. You're talking about a system that keeps around maybe roughly 70-90% of people who would have died off in their early years. Props up and guards the failures and the rejects and the weak.

There's always negatives to any system, even if the positives vastly outweigh it.

[Tom McB]

Well, I'm currently costing the NHS three figures a week for various prescriptions relating to my recovery from cancer. In saying that, for the last thirty years I've cost them next to bugger all. Swings and roundabouts, really.

In a wider context, there should be much more control of the prescription (and repeated supply) of anti-depressants, which have for many years led to long-term addiction for many patients - often without their knowing that it could be an issue.

Ditto, but being on Afflibercept I'm dearer still. Forty years of paying in now being to be paid back. Good luck with the treatment btw.

Ref anti depressants, no argument.

[SimonLichtie]

In a wider context, there should be much more control of the prescription (and repeated supply) of anti-depressants, which have for many years led to long-term addiction for many patients - often without their knowing that it could be an issue.

I would bet that a large percentage of those who're perscribed perscription drugs which may lead to addiction are very naive to this as you say. I also bet a large amount of the same people feel some sort of moral high ground over 'drug users' and berate 'junkies' etc, while being completely ignorent that they're a junkie themselves. The lack of understanding and education of what drugs are and what they do, irrelevent of legality, to me can be hugely amusing, and also hugely frustrating at the same time.

It is obviously a good thing that more issues, both physical and mental, can be treated with drugs, but the longer term effects sometimes mean that things being harder in the short term, without perscribed medication, are better than the potential longer term effects.

[Sergeant Wilson]

50%, is this in tablets of stone?

[ChiockCharnlery]

One of the reasons I support the legalization and regulation of all drugs.

I was part of that stigma myself for a time, having been robbed three times by junkies before I even turned 18. Easy to group people in like that when you've been the victim of a crime, especially repeat crime. At the end of the day though it's like hating people who breathe air just because those three people who robbed you happened to breathe air.

Same shit often results in racism, misandry and so forth..

Drugs don't make people do shitty things, that's a fucking deflection for average shitty human behavior. Nice leftist delusion propping tactic like blaming a gun for a murder or mass shooting. Hard drugs can absolutely be used recreationally by successful, decent members of society and not result in ruining their lives. You would be quite surprised at just how many people use them.


Honestly criminalization of drug use does nothing but harm. People using the drugs in question would certainly increase if legalized (although how much is arguable, especially in the case of drugs like cocaine), but definitely from a ideological standpoint there's something extremely hypocritical and futile about throwing a person in prison for choosing to smoke heroin or snort some cocaine when they can destroy their bodies with so many extremely harmful legal substances and products.

[Sergeant Wilson]

One of the reasons I support the legalization and regulation of all drugs.

I was part of that stigma myself for a time, having been robbed three times by junkies before I even turned 18. Easy to group people in like that when you've been the victim of a crime, especially repeat crime. At the end of the day though it's like hating people who breathe air just because those three people who robbed you happened to breathe air.

Same shit often results in racism, misandry and so forth..

Drugs don't make people do shitty things, that's a fucking deflection for average shitty human behavior. Nice leftist delusion propping tactic like blaming a gun for a murder or mass shooting. Hard drugs can absolutely be used recreationally by successful, decent members of society and not result in ruining their lives. You would be quite surprised at just how many people use them.

Honestly criminalization of drug use does nothing but harm. People using the drugs in question would certainly increase if legalized (although how much is arguable, especially in the case of drugs like cocaine), but definitely from a ideological standpoint there's something extremely hypocritical and futile about throwing a person in prison for choosing to smoke heroin or snort some cocaine when they can destroy their bodies with so many extremely harmful legal substances and products.

Is this one Supras?

[ChiockCharnlery]

Is this one Supras?

What?

Why do you people constantly accuse people with alternative political views of being trolls/aliases?

Quite sad really. Guess it's easier to keep things black and white though.

[Supras]

Is this one Supras?

Obviously not, his attempt is a bit ham fisted compared to my rigorous, facts based analysis.

But, on this issue at least, he's kind of right - which he certainly isn't with his desperate Alex Salmond thread on the Politics Forum.

It's As We Rise Again, incidentally.

[SweeperDee]

It would seem a lot of the prescriptions are for illnesses or conditions that could be reduced by an improvement in diet and lifestyle choices, e.g. diet, lack of exercise, smoking, drinking and unsolicited drug abuse.

That's the real issue; people are just lazy b*****ds, and as a result their health is in tatters.

[Tom McB]

That's the real issue; people are just lazy b*****ds, and as a result their health is in tatters.

Some are, some are not.

Though going into the Beatson Centre with a shit load of daft buggers gaspin their way through fags outside Gartnavel does raise a grim smile.

[Cerberus]

Take 3 steps before seeing a GP says England NHS.
http://www.bbc.com/news/health-42511553

 

Or just die in the street like the Tories want.

[ICTChris]

Who goes to the GP with indigestion or a cold?

[NotThePars]

I think it's incredibly good to tell people to maybe reconsider seeing a GP after years of telling men in particular that they need to stop being stoic and go see a fucking doctor when something's wrong.

[BFTD]

For a two-page thread, this contains quite the cornucopia of posters who are no longer with us, and some who are probably still on the 'to-do' list.

Pretty grim to see Tam McB talking about his treatment, walloper or not. May the rest of our posters be free of terminal diseases in the coming year. Especially you, bud - cheers.