Tories inflict head louse epidemic on poor children with new NHS cost-cutting measure
Head lice: Your scalp is probably itching at the sight of them.
Did a private pharmaceutical company lobby the Tories to take bug-busting shampoos off the NHS, so it could double its income?
Interesting thought, isn’t it?
And, if austerity is over, why can’t the Tory NHS afford simple anti-headlouse shampoo?
A head lice epidemic could be coming to … schools after the NHS banned GPs from prescribing “bug buster” shampoo.
NHS England changed its guidelines in March on what over-the-counter items could be routinely prescribed in a bid to save £100m from its budget, with head lice treatment axed from the list.
Previously, the insecticide treatment cost the NHS £4.92, but parents fighting off itchy bugs will now be forced to fork out double that to buy the same product over-the-counter.
A spokesman for the NHS said head lice could be “safely and effectively treated by wet combing”, with chemical intervention recommended in only the most “exceptional circumstances”.
Emma Hardy, Labour MP for Hull West and Hessle, said: “This is just another example of this Tory government making a small saving in the short term that could lead to a much bigger cost in the long term.
“They’ve also completely failed to recognise how significant a cost this treatment could be to someone who is just about managing to get by.”
Source: Warning Hull could face ‘head lice epidemic’ as GPs ban shampoo – Hull Live
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In their quest for profits the money-grubbing drugs industry has finally made the term “parasites” apply to themselves literally and no longer a euphemism.
Some years ago I read the drugs industry was the world’s most profitable industry. Oil came second because of its much larger overheads.
Yet another civil servant with little common sense or knowledge of real life pontificating as to what should or should not be on prescription just as the so called austerity measures were supposed to be over. Maybe he or she has friends in low lobbying places however this is a step to far….as usual the donation hungry Cons. have their sympathetic ear for cash rich Pharms….. but not the public it seems. Once these infections start up it is not just the poor who suffer these little critters who unfortunately have no class distinctions. Ask at any school plagued by these parasites, once one child has it the whole family has to go through the cleansing process the cost is much much higher than just one application. As for wet combing? What feckin lame brains do we employ in the NHS these days obviously Con supporters.