www.iva.co.uk

I have been reading through blog posts and seen things where people mentioned unexpected prescription costs and also not being able to afford their prescriptions. In case anyone is not aware of this, you can get an NHS prepayment certificate, £29.10 for 3 months, so if it's likely you need more than 3 prescriptions over 3 months, it's definitely a way to save some money and get the medication you need. I have 4 regular medications each month and I have now gone to monthly direct debit.

Do keep your card though, even if expired as they once ran a check on me. I have a common name, so they decided that I didn't have a valid prepayment cert and sent me a fine out, £50! I was able to phone them and give my number and it turned out to be a mix up, civil penalty was cancelled immediately.

I used to go one better and time my repeat prescriptions to get 6 months worth of medication over the three months I had pre-paid for the card --- so for the year I only paid for 6 months. The doctor did question it at the time but accepted my explanation

When I did the 3 month cert I would get 4 months by timing purchase on collection of 1sr set of drugs and requesting the 4th month a bit early and collecting it before it expired. I'm not sure my doctors would agree to higher quantities with it being opiate based pain meds I take.

Great idea shared by you, I will apply this method to save money. Thanks for sharing.

Lisa -- could you please stop commenting on old posts as this clogs up the board with out of date issues. Thank you.