The latest news from Coeliac UK is that Northamptonshire PCT is to reconsider its policy of restricting prescriptions for gluten free foods for coeliacs.
I’ve posted about this before, discussing NHS cuts for gluten free food and Northamptonshire prescription cuts, so am very pleased to see that they are having a rethink. It is important that coeliacs stick to a gluten free diet, to avoid ill health, and providing some basic staples to enable this will save the NHS money in the long run …
And it is more than just a change of mind, apparently, and more of a significant rethink – they are to remove the need for a prescription by giving patients a points system they can use to choose the gluten free products they want. I haven’t seen any details for how this will work, but it sounds very interesting. As long as patients are awarded enough points, of course, and we don’t swap prescription cuts for points cuts. Watch this space …
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I understand Gloucestershire PCT stopped certain gluten free basics being prescribed to coeliac patients in the area.
Please look into this matter and let me know if this is triue (& if so why these basics are not now allowed when gluten-free bread made by the same company are still allowed and the rolls are not on the blacklist and they are accepted by ACBS?).
Thank you,
L Anderson
Hi
This is worrying – and possibly part of a future trend, given the large cuts to come…
However, there is some discussion of this going on over on the Gluten Free Message Board at the moment. Do go and look (http://members2.boardhost.com/glutenfree) but I’ve copied the key information here, because the messages don’t remain for ever on the Board:
“NHS Gloucestershire in common with other NHS primary care organisations has introduced guidance on prescribing gluten free products for people with diagnosed coeliac disease. These guidelines were developed using the coeliac society prescribing guide document,…. The NHSG guidance was agreed by the NHSG drug and therapeutics committee, and provided for use by GPs in spring 2010 … the aim of the guidance is to help prescribers understand the monthly amount of gluten free foods that are normally required by a diagnosed coeliac. This is represented as a number of units per month, e.g. 2 pizza bases = 1 unit, 400g bread (includes bread rolls).
NHS Gloucestershire has not forbidden the prescribing of bread rolls or pizza bases.”
This was copied from a letter from the NHS Gloucestershire to Laurence Robertson MP, who had been asked to find out about this by a constituent.
Perhaps there was some confusion at the doctor’s surgery?