I'm looking into the HC1 form (low income/help with costs) but finding it rather awkward - as with many things, the 'student' section seems to be aimed purely at undergraduate students...in your experience is it worth bothering with this? Will it be yet another case where the dual-sided coin of PhD identity fails me, i.e. "You're a student, you can't get x" or "You have a salary/income, you can't get x"?

A related issue for anyone with asthma - are you able to purchase two inhalers on the same prescription? I have been able to do this for about 12 years, yet the most recent time I was given two separate prescriptions, each with one inhaler (n.b. both are exactly the same - I usually just get one sheet with 2x on it)...meaning that if I wanted both, I would have had to pay £16.10 - TWICE as much as if it had been all written on one sheet!

I realise this is more of a moan than an actual question but any advice is welcome... :)

Hi Magdatrix, You can ask for a HC1 form at a pharmacy. I did this a few years ago but was rejected due to student loan payments (back when I was an undergraduate). Since I get considerably more funding now via a scholarship, I have never bothered trying again as I know it will not be accepted. It may be worth trying though; as I said, this was many years ago and things may have changed since!

Regarding inhalers, I am not asthmatic but I was mis diagnosed as being so about 1 year ago and it cost me a lot. I was charged, as you, for seperate inhalers. On top of this I was charged for a couple of other things (a peak flow meter) and it totalled well over £20. The bad thing was is that I did not even need them anyway so it was money down the drain. Maybe you could ask your doctor about this change in charges and why you no longer get them on the same prescription?

Whilst I do not have asthma, I have other health problems that require regular prescriptions so I empathise with your post. What you can try is purchasing a pre-payment certificate- just google this. You can pay so much for a certain length of time and be sent a card which means you do not have to pay when collecting prescriptions. It is only really cost effective though if you are getting your prescriptions quite regularly (I think it is around £30 for 3 months, then a higher amount for 6 months and so on).