[Margaret Pilkington]

Well, Mrs C.......if you tell them that is how you wish to be addressed then that is what they will call you.
I know that when I was admitting patients I asked them how they would like to be addressed....some wanted formality, others didn't.
When the new Junior Doctors started on the wards each February and August, we(the nurses) used to joke that some of them were still wiping breast milk from the corners of their mouths......not PC I know.....but that was how young they seemed.

I am not sure about the statistics of the population who pay for scripts....but I always paid for mine, and I knew many others who also paid.

It is interesting to note that prescription charges went up again recently, so I would be surprised if they are going to be abolished.

600 lives may be saved by this intervention, but it is going to cost a lot of money to do this and in the course of this action, this group of the population are going to be medicalised.......I was going to say the older end of the population, but 40 is quite young.
It strikes me as being a ploy to get everyone on a database(or am i being paranoid here), or at best a political gimmick........and an expensive one at that.

Maybe the drug companies who will make money, are going to bung the government some dough eh! (oops..... my paranoia is showing again)