My partner has recently been diagnosed with PD and her specialist wants her to start rasagiline.GP won't prescribe as it costs 10x more than selegiline. Seems my partner is subject to postcode lottery as I can see elsewhere on the forum that many others are being prescribed rasagiline.
Is this a common problem? Does anyone on any of the forums have any suggestions/solutions to get around the impasse we have with the GP? We live in East Hertfordshire. Not sure if the issue is exclusive to this geographical area.
My take on the precribing of P meds. is that the consultant has the power to say what is required. They are the experts and not a GP who sees very few cases of P. That's how it has been with us for the past 18 years.
Any changes of meds. are conveyd to our GP who prescribes what the neurologist recommends.
Contact your neurologist, or, at the very least, their secretary,and explain the situation. Maybe a stiff letter will do the trick.
In all my reading most days in the seven years since my diagnosis I have never heard of GP taking it upon themselves to alter what the neuro.recommends. There may be a case for the cheaper drug from what I've just googled just now but your doctor's action sets a precedent as to who is going to manage your Parkinsons and most GP's do not see enough PD patients to have the up to date knowledge and experience to get the best results. It is ideally recommended that you see a neurologist who specialises in movement disorders in preference to other specialities let alone trust to the GP's opinions.
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I'm sorry to read your partner is in this situation with her medication.
If she would like to talk to a Parkinson's nurse or one of our advisers about this, then please call our helpline on 0808 800 0303 from Monday-Friday: 9am-7pm and on Saturday: 10am-2pm.
Am interesred how things turn ot. A fw months ago had ttochange gp becaue the oe I go told m straight he didnt care what the specialists diagosed hei dsagreed with them and I was advised by mysocial worker tochange gp. I didso but hve nev been ale to hve an appointment with new one and have t see whoever is avilable, invcluding the gp I hd to change way fom, so have not been ableto getany help frfrom thatend yet.
Maybe your gp would give you generic azilect ( rasagiline.i complain when i got generic and soon put me back on azilect but what im saying is something better than nothing. Its still not right tho would get your nero secretary to phone.30 azilect are £180.maybe we brits would get are right meds if we put a stop to it.ie out eu
Don't like to bring politics into the forum...but membership of the EU is not the problem.The huge profits made by the greed-ridden drug industry is the problem and it is growing.
The French have vetoed TTIP whilst the Brexit brigade can't wait to sign it and the 3 main players, Johnson, Gove and D-Smith are all on record as wanting to privatise the NHS.
"Millionaire businessmen have been increasing the price of drugs bought by the NHS by up to 12,500 per cent.
A small group of entrepreneurs has made vast sums after raising the cost of medicines by £262 million a year — the equivalent of funding an extra 7,000 junior doctors a year, an investigation has found.
They are taking advantage of a loophole that leaves them free to impose “extortionate” price rises on drugs if they drop an existing brand name and sell it under its generic name instead.
Health service price controls are designed to reduce the cost of drugs to the taxpayer. However, the founders of four companies have overseen a dramatic increase in the price of medicines for the treatment of common conditions ranging from high blood pressure to hyperthyroidism.
Good reading gg only put the eu part in as a punt as its all going on at moment i won't say which hospital but have of it is owed by us already it's only a matter of time before it all changes
Hi - for those of you who were interested in a follow-up to the original posting.
My partners GP will now prescribe Rasagiline on Private prescription only. So we pay. According to the GP he is restricted by Hertfordshire Medicines Management Committee guidance (dated April 2011) which says that rasagiline can only be offered to patients who are intolerant to selegiline ( a drug which was not recommended by the PD specialist).
The rasagiline my partner is taking appears to be 'generic' product. It is not marked as Azilect. One of the reasons cited in the Hertfordshire Medicines Management Committee guidance for not prescribing Rasagiline is that it costs 12x as much to prescribe as selegiline and therefore is not considered to be cost-effective (£1100 a year compared to £90 a year at April 2011 prices).
However the guidance seems to proceeed the availability of 'generic' Rasagiline and has not been updated. We believe that the private prescription costs we have calculated should not cost more than around £300 a year. It seems unclear therefore why it is not available on the NHS bearing in mind my partner would have to pay £8.40 prescription charge per item anyway.
I dont know if you meant to say Azilect/rasageline was not available on the NHS generally. but it is. Lots of people on here will be getting it. It would seem to me that Herts Medecines Management Committee are out of line with most other areas.
Your situation is most puzzling and a little worrying. Did you get the information just from your gp about the guidelines? It may be an idea to phone this sites help line to see if they have any advice.
Als have you been referred to a pd nurse?. They can give support on the meds front I believe
Also phone your specialists secretary to let them know happening.
I've just read this thread with interest . I've just been prescribed Rasagiline by my GP in Fife on
reccomendation of a Neuro consultant . No question of it not being given and indeed I had already read it was
the replacement for Selegiline as fewer side effects .
i had been previously told PD drugs are 'cheap as chips' in NHS terms and indeed cost does not seem to be an issue. As others have mentioned , maybe a local PD nurse can comment on the current pricing . A lot can happen in 5 years .
