How is putting ‘taxpayer funded’ on drugs meant to make us feel? Grateful? Guilty? | Ann Robinson

Health officials insist that labelling medicine as ‘paid for by the taxpayer’ is for the good of the patient, and not about cutting costs for the NHS

Prescription drugs will carry a “wealth warning”, as I like to call it, from next year, according to an initiative announced this week by health secretary Jeremy Hunt. “We intend to publish the indicative medicine costs to the NHS on the packs of all medicines costing more than £20, which will also be marked ‘funded by the UK taxpayer’,” Hunt explained at a conference on Wednesday.

Related: Price to be written on NHS-prescribed medicine costing more than £20

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