Online prescribing in the United Kingdom has undergone something of a revolution over the last ten years. This article sets out to explain the background to these changes and why UK doctors are leading the world in the field of remote diagnosis. This article will also explore the safety issues surrounding online prescriptions and the the way the industry is likely to develop over the next few years.
The internet has produced many profound changes in the way it affects people’s lives but perhaps none more so in the field of medicine. It can be said to have had a liberalizing effect on people’s lives but of course with every upside there is a downside, even a dark side. Up until the turn of this century, the idea of remote prescribing didn’t really exist except in as far as doctors or GPs as they are known in the UK would be prepared to prescribe medical treatments ( known also as POM’s or Prescription Only Medicines) to their patients based on a telephone consultation. It has to be said that GP’s would only be prepared to remotely prescribe to patients whose medical history they were completely familiar with. Under GMC (General Medical Council) rules, doctors have always been allowed to prescribe remotely but this guidance was based on the fact that the doctor would be able to provide a comprehensive follow up service. online prescription service UK was born.
What completely changed the market was the arrival of Viagra, the pharmaceutical industry’s accidental answer to the problem of impotence known medically as erectile dysfunction. Due to the fact that this treatment was extremely effective – up to 80% of men report an improvement in their erections – there was a huge amount of interest and demand. This demand was never going to be met by the NHS or the National Health Service simple on grounds of cost. As over 10% of the adult male population is supposed to suffer from erectile dysfunction or impotence at any one given time, it is hardly surprising that the UK health authorities decided to limit or ration the availability of this treatment. In fact the solution they came up with was to allow patients who suffered from a limited range of conditions eg prostate cancer, type 2 diabetes etc to be able to buy Viagra on a NHS prescription but this was limited to a maximum of 4 tabs, deemd enough for the average user but not really enough for those men with a more active sex life.
It was this frustrated demand that led people to search the internet looking for alternative sources of the treatment. Various entrepreneurially-minded people realided that if they could provide a safe and reliable source of the treatments, then there was a potentially a massive market of willing consumers. So really it was the Government’s decision to control the supply of Pfizer Viagra that led to the birth of online prescribing. When further erectile treatments started to come onto the market, for example Eli Lilly Cialis and Bayer Levitra, the market was only going to get bigger. Other very popular treatments include the hairloss treatment Propecia, again not available on the NHS. One of the other great scourges of modern western society is the obesity epidemic surely God’s way of telling us we have too much money. The future for online prescriptions looks brighter than ever as all the UK Government agencies have now endorsed the industry.