Hi I hope someone might be able to advise: a little background:- my mum is terminally ill and to give her an extra few weeks a blood transfusion has been suggested. Fine. Except that she's already terribly frail and petrified of hospitals, has dementia so like familiarity so rather than put her through all that we declined, and the GP suggested that instead she could have periodic injections of EPO so that her blood count etc would improve. Great, but EPO is only available on the NHS to end stage kidney failure patients, and she doesn't have this, so although it would help, the GP could only issue a private prescription, which I'm happy to pay for and was told by the GP it would be about £90. Took it into her local pharmacy (NOT a big chain) who said it was a 'special' and would take up to 5 days. OK, well, seemed a long time, but what do I know. 3 days later they called and said it would be £588. I said that was impossible. They said they'd look into it. Heard nothing for another 4 days so went in and asked, and £588 is the price for a pack of six, my mum has been prescribed one per month - she probably has 2 months or so left. Their reasoning is that because they have to buy 6 they will have to charge me for 6 even though I only have a prescription for one. I asked for and got the prescription back and have since taken it elsewhere and had it filled for £98. Can a pharmacy do this, i.e. refuse to fill a prescription for monetary reasons? Or are they compelled to supply what's asked as part of their licence to be pharamcists? Any help appreciated as I don't care for their attitude and wish to make them aware of their responsibilities if they have any. Thanks Bob