Use your loaf! NHS officials pay £32 for gluten-free bread that costs £2.25 in the shops

NHS officials paid more than £32 each for thousands of small loaves of bread, it has emerged.
The gluten-free product, which is given out free of charge to patients with coeliac disease, costs just £2.25 in supermarkets.
Official figures show the cost to the NHS of supplying it through pharmacies has rocketed to £32.27 for a small loaf – or £2.48 a slice. The total cost of the bread was £1.25million in a year.

Over-priced: The NHS paid £32.27 for gluten bread - more than 10 times its supermarket value

The sum was paid by NHS officials in Wales. The Health Service there also pays £11.54 for a bag of pasta which costs £3.20 in a shop, and £7.14 for gluten-free biscuits that are £2.22 on the high street.
Darren Miller, Shadow Health Minister in the Welsh Assembly, uncovered the bread bill, which is only blamed on ‘administration charges’.

 

He said: ‘This is not an effective use of resources. The Health Minister needs to change the way in which patients access such foods to protect the public purse.’ The Government in Cardiff is led by Labour. 
Taxpayers Alliance spokesman Emma Boon said: ‘It smacks of incompetence. This doesn’t look like taxpayers are getting value for money.’

The bread bill was uncovered by Darren Miller, who said it was 'not an effective use of resources'

NHS prescriptions for gluten-free and wheat-free food in Wales have rocketed in the last five years, from 106,000 to 142,000, as more patients are diagnosed with coeliac disease of the small intestine.
Welsh Minister Lesley Griffiths said: ‘Determining what is given on prescription is a matter for GPs who use their professional clinical judgement based on the patient’s clinical needs. Previously gluten-free products were only available in specialist food shops.
‘Now they are widely available. Work is now under way to identify savings that can be made in reducing the number of gluten-free products prescribed by the NHS.’