Hard-up NHS bosses are rationing vital supplies for elderly Fife patients in a desperate bid to make ends meet.
As a new report revealed GP prescribing costs in the region are higher than anywhere else in Scotland, a Fife councillor has made the claim that pensioners have had their stock of incontinence pads cut.
The move has apparently come despite protests from nurses.
Andrew Rodger said the move was humiliating for old people at home who have been told they will have to phone to request additional supplies if they run out.
The independent councillor claimed the cut is just one ”scandalous” result of NHS Fife’s sky-high prescribing budget combined with the Scottish Government’s decision to abolish prescription charges.
Other problems, he said, include patients being taken off medication prescribed in hospital and transferred on to cheaper generic drugs by GPs ordered to cut their spending.
The councillor has accused NHS Fife of treating patients with a lack of dignity and making them ”piggy in the middle” in an attempt to stay within budget.
Mr Rodger’s allegations came as a new report revealed GP prescribing costs in Fife are higher than anywhere else in Scotland.
Prescribing in the Kirkcaldy and Levenmouth Community Health Partnership alone accounts for a third of its £62.5 million budget, and GP prescribing across the kingdom was £1.7 million overspent towards the end of the last financial year.
This year, NHS Fife will have to make £17.5 million of efficiency savings just to stay on budget including £3 million from the prescribing budget and GPs are said to have expressed concern over cost cutting.
Mr Rodger has called for an investigation into the situation and suggested costs could be cut in the methadone budget or health board managers’ salaries.
”I was contacted by a constituent whose elderly mother only received one box of incontinence pads in her delivery this week,” he said. ”She usually gets two boxes as she needs six pads a day.
“When I queried it for him I was told it had been decided she should only have four pads a day, even though the nurse says she needs six. Her next delivery date is not until June and she was told to tell her family when she’s running out so they can phone and ask for more.
”It’s humiliating for old people who need these pads to be denied them. It’s the principle of the thing. It’s scandalous.”
He added that he had also heard numerous complaints, both from patients and GPs, about having their medication changed after leaving hospital.
”Consultants are prescribing one thing but GPs are being told to cut costs and prescribe cheaper versions when people get home.”
NHS Fife medical director Dr Brian Montgomery said he could not comment on individual cases.
He added Fife GPs do not prescribe any more drugs than other GPs in Scotland.
He said: ”In some instances Fife has tended to choose more expensive drugs than other parts of Scotland and so has been a high-cost prescriber. A number of initiatives are in place to deliver best value across a number of areas of prescribing. This will not affect the quality of treatment being given.”
Dr Montgomery continued that there was no evidence of any overprescribing of methadone treatment and pointed out the number of patients receiving drug replacement therapy had fallen by 9%.”
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