Student post: No more painkillers and gluten-free food on the NHS as health service head launches cost-cutting drive

Recently it has been announced that the NHS will be not be prescribing painkillers or gluten-free food. They are attempting to cut costs to the NHS and will no longer be offering everyday medicines which can be bought in supermarkets. With the increasing population, the NHS is said to be trying to save money by reducing costs by £1 billion. According to the article £114 million is being spent on mundane medicines and a further £22 million on gluten-free foods. £114 million sounds like an extreme amount of money to be spending on drugs such as paracetamol and ibuprofen and £13.7 million on ‘gluten-free, wheat-free and low protein bread to patients in 2016.’ The article makes it seem like the NHS are struggling to spend this amount of money. The writer in no way mentions how much this amount of money relates to the bigger picture and whether this is a substantial amount or not. It turns out that for 2015/2016 the overall budget was about £116.4 billion which means the amount being spent on painkillers and gluten-free food does not even equate to one per cent of NHS spending. This article plays on the fact that most of the public are unable to compute the difference between millions and billions as the numbers are too big.

Source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/03/27/no-painkillers-gluten-free-food-nhs-health-service-head-launches/