Test Strip Costs

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SilentAssassin1642

SilentAssassin1642

Well-Known Member
Relationship to Diabetes
Type 1
Right a bit of research so i can throw stuff in evil doctors face:

their argument re refusing me test strips is that they are too expensive.

However, it seems as though a box of the bayer contour test strips are about ?25 over the counter. I think its the same for the onetouch ultra ones I use. Is this the cost of all of them or are they different?

So, if anyone has any ideas could you help me out? I want to go armed with as much information as possible.
 
How bout emailing the diff companies and asking how much they cost to make etc and if you are charged extra if you have to buy them than if you get them on prescription?
 
Rachel would be your girl here Sam, but I am not even allowed the ones you have (correct me if you are wrong, are you using the optium?) unless I am pregnant! Apparently becuase of the cost....
 
Sugarbum said:
Rachel would be your girl here Sam, but I am not even allowed the ones you have (correct me if you are wrong, are you using the optium?) unless I am pregnant! Apparently becuase of the cost....
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i have the optium for ketones (they tried kicking up a stink about it, i shot them down on the phone with that one) but for BG testing I use the onetouch ultrasmart which uses the onetouch ultra strips.

Tbh with you, when I went for the ketone strips first time, they weren't that much more than the normal strips by the looks of things.
 
What? Type 1's can't get them either?? I don't beleive it!!

Blimey!! How do they justify not prescribing test strips for type 1s???????? Forgive my ignorance, but don't you need to know what your blood sugar levels are to find out how much insulin you need? Are you supposed to guess?

Anyway, bad news is that all test strips would appear to be approximately the same price. I guess they have to be, or trusts would always be forking out huge sums to money to provide everybody with every meter on the market, in case there was a pricing war and suddenly had to switch to a new brand of strips. We recently swapped strip brand for our ward stock, it was chaos... I got a One Touch Ultra which seems the most common thing to send patients home on, except newly diagnosed kids who get Freestyle Lite and the wards have something in an orange and blue box that i can't remember the name of....heavens knows why we have so many.

My out of date BNF (see, the NHS won't even fork out to get me a new one of these) says that the Trust pays around 15 pounds for a pack of 50, so buying over the counter is a nice little earner fo your communities. I wish i could buy them cost price, but alas my purchasing manager is too principled.:D..On prescription your local pharmacy gets re-embursed the 15 pounds and then makes about 1 pound per prescription. You might say it's in everybody (except yours and mine)'s best interest to sell them to you over the counter at 25 pound a shot. Oh, and that's also why e-bay sells them so cheap.
Sorry, not good news.
Rachel
 
Cant your team help you out with a letter explaining that you NEED them!

Our Dr was a bit stingy with their prescribing in the beginning with both of ours so i wrote a nice but firm letter telling them we need 4 x 50 on each prescription otherwise we will be bugging them every week for more (we use loads and they should not be rationed IMO) i also explained in the letter that if they had a problem they could contact our DSN and team and provided the details, it worked we get 4 x 50 as and when we need them now. xx
 
RachelT said:
Blimey!! How do they justify not prescribing test strips for type 1s???????? Forgive my ignorance, but don't you need to know what your blood sugar levels are to find out how much insulin you need? Are you supposed to guess?

Rachel
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Doc said she couldn't have 250 a month.
 
Peter C said:
Doc said she couldn't have 250 a month.
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doesn't matter whether he said i couldn't have 250 peter. My nurse has since spoken to him and explained the REASONS behind it. Usually I get through 200 per month, but at the moment due to a change in insulin and general rubbish levels, I am testing ALOT more than that.
 
and thanks for that Rachel, I'll tell him they all cost the same so he can wind his neck in. Hah! Do you know of a website or anything that I can write any of the info down from?
 
Rachel mentioned her BNF. It's the British National Formulary book.

Their website says: The BNF provides UK healthcare professionals with authoritative and practical information on the selection and clinical use of medicines in a clear, concise and accessible manner.

A kind of medicines bible for doctors and pharmacists. Has NHS prices in it.

Find it at http://bnf.org
 
Rachel is right, my source says they may vary slightly but should only be pence, he didn't trail through the book though.

Hope you get 'em!
 
I get strips for the one touch ultra my docto gives me 200 at a time, and I'm type 2

For comparison sites maybe you could do a google search and see what results that brings up. If you ask for UK only sites, you wont get stuff from all over the world.
 
i only get 102 at a times methinks its time to speak to gp
 
My doctor claims he is type 2, so is a bit more sympathetic with his test strips. The nurses down there are less interstead...
 
Sugarbum said:
Rachel would be your girl here Sam, but I am not even allowed the ones you have (correct me if you are wrong, are you using the optium?) unless I am pregnant! Apparently becuase of the cost....
Click to expand...

Do you mean you can't get ketone strips?
 
i spoke to my pharmacist, he has told me that they all cost about the same

however, I have a new thread to create...
 
Sam, can you drive or are you learning? The medical questionaire from the DVLA asks insulin dependent diabetics if they test regularly in particular before driving. Your GP would be hard pushed to refuse you then?
 
falcon123 said:
Sam, can you drive or are you learning? The medical questionaire from the DVLA asks insulin dependent diabetics if they test regularly in particular before driving. Your GP would be hard pushed to refuse you then?
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no i don't. I have a provisional license but stopped lessons. However, I can try that one 😉
 
There is essentially for similar items within the NHS a negotiation which takes place with all manufacturers. It goes along the lines of 'if you want your product to be able to be prescribed we're offering to buy them from you for ?x' this price ?x is the same across all manufacturers of the same item type. e.g. test strips, lancets and needles.

As such when this is agreed in principal the item is then added to the BNF which is the prescribing bible for all medical practitioners in the UK.

Keep in mind, the NHS buys a phenomenal volume of test strips every month and there is an accounting policy for individual pharmacies for NHS prescription, private prescription and private over the counter sales.

The pharmacy may therefore buy at two or more different prices. I've been prescribed tablets in the dim and distant past and been told it's cheaper for the pharmacist to sell them to me over the counter than on prescription. In todays world I'm guessing aspirins at ?1.10 a pot rather than however much a prescription is.

So there are two sides to it and obviously the manufacturer of the test strips isn't going to offer one-off pharmacy sales at the same price as the NHS or they will have the NHS buyers looking for their blood on a better price.

Meters and test strips are very similar to inkjet printers and replacement ink. You wonder how on earth they can make a meter or printer for such a low cost or even free, better still with meters they provide batteries etc for life and replace the thing when it breaks - of course both are being paid for by the consumables needed to use the device.

A ?10 meter with ?25 worth of test strips and a ?50 printer/scanner costing ?47 each time you want more ink or every three weeks if it's a Lexmark!!
 
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