If you are having your treatment as a National Health Service (NHS) patient, then any prescriptions for tablets or medicines that you need will be NHS prescriptions.

Unless you fall into one of the groups of people who are exempt from prescription charges you will have to pay a prescription charge in England and Scotland ( there are no prescription charges in Wales) for each separate item on your prescription.

If you are having treatment for a particular illness (including cancer) as a private patient then all prescriptions needed for that condition should be issued as private prescriptions. The price you will have to pay for these prescriptions varies with the cost of the drugs, and the amount of medication, that has been prescribed. So the cost will be the basic cost of the drug, plus handling charges from the pharmacist and value added tax (VAT).

Usually the cost of a private prescription will be considerably more than the current prescription charge per item of an NHS prescription. However, some drugs, especially those which have been in routine use for many years, are actually very cheap and just occasionally a private prescription may actually be cheaper than the NHS charge. So if you do have to pay for your NHS prescriptions and the charges are a problem for you it might be worth asking your doctor whether any of the medications that you have to take could be cheaper on a private prescription.