england Archives - Neil Turner's Blog

Getting free prescriptions in England

October 13, 2026 by Neil Turner

A photo of my NHS Medical Exemption Certificate which entitles me to free prescriptions

As well as a free bus pass, one of the silver linings of being diagnosed with epilepsy is that I no longer have to pay for prescription medication. Epilepsy is one of several medical conditions which makes me eligible for a medical exemption certificate which you can get from the NHS Business Services Authority.

There are several other reasons why you may qualify for free prescriptions:

You live in Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland. The devolved administrations in these countries have abolished prescription charges, so all their residents get free prescriptions. Yorkshire hasn’t yet obtained sufficient devolution from the rest of England to roll this out, and we’re not in a position to move over the borders at the moment.
You’re under 16, 16-18 and in full-time education, or over 60. Children don’t pay for prescriptions, nor do those receiving full-time further education, and once you turn 60, you don’t have to pay either.
You’re in receipt of certain benefits. Some recipients of universal credit, pension credits or who are on low incomes can claim free prescriptions too.
You have a medical condition that requires regular medication. This is the one I now fall into.

Asthma and free prescriptions

Now, I’ve been asthmatic since I was three, and have had to take prescription medication every day since then to literally help me breathe. However, asthma is not one of the medical conditions where you can claim a medical exemption certificate. This means that, since I turned 19, I have been paying for my asthma medication – until this summer, that is.

In recent years I have had an NHS Prescription Prepayment Certificate (PPC), which is like a season pass for prescriptions. I make 10 monthly payments by direct debit, and can then get as many medicines as I am prescribed without having to pay for them individually. If you need at least one item of medication each month, then a PPC will save you money.

How to apply for free prescriptions

Once it became clear that I would need to take Levetiracetam twice a day, every day, probably for the rest of my life, I filled out an exemption form. Most pharmacies should have a supply of these forms (which are on paper), and you’ll just need to take it along to your GP practice for it to be signed and stamped. Within a few weeks, I had received my medical exemption certificate – a credit-card sized piece of card which gives me free prescriptions for five years. Notably, my direct debit payments for my PPC were also automatically cancelled when this was issued, which was nice.

It would have been nice if my asthma would have been enough to get free prescriptions on its own. Over the years, I have literally spent thousands of pounds on medication just to ensure that I can breathe. But at least now I probably won’t have to pay any prescription charges again – unless we manage to somehow cure my epilepsy within the next five years.

Playlist of the month: football songs

July 15, 2026 by Neil Turner

A screenshot of the football songs playlist on Spotify.

In honour of the England Men’s team making the Football World Cup Semi-Finals for only the fourth time ever, this month’s playlist is all about football songs.

I haven’t been watching the games – mainly because they’re mostly on late at night or early in the morning UK time, but also because England tend to play better when I don’t watch. So hopefully the fact that I won’t be watching tonight’s game may mean that England qualify for only their second World Cup Final ever, and the first in 60 years.

Which brings me onto this month’s playlist. As usual, you can listen along on Spotify.

“Three Lions” by Baddiel, Skinner and the Lightning Seeds. It’s been thirty years since thirty years of hurt. This was the official song for Euro 96, when England hosted the UEFA European Football Championship two years after failing to qualify for the 1994 World Cup (which was also in the USA). That year, England turned a corner and made it to the semi-finals, and have since qualified for every subsequent World Cup. The 1998 re-release was better in my view but this is the original.
“(How Does It Feel to Be) On Top of the World” by England United. Controversially, the 1998 re-release of Three Lions beat this song, the official England anthem for the 1998 World Cup in France, to number one in the singles chart. ‘England United’ consisted of Echo & The Bunnymen, Ocean Colour Scene, Space and the Spice Girls, making it an interesting snapshot of late 1990s British pop music.
“Carnaval de Paris” by Dario G. Another 1998 World Cup song, this time featuring instruments from each country playing in the tournament. Including bagpipes, as this was one of the few years when Scotland qualified. Also re-released in 2002, but without the bagpipes. It’s worth watching the Top of the Pops performance.
“Vindaloo” by Fat Les. We’re still in 1998, heading to Waterloo with my mum, my dad and my gran and a bucket of vindaloo. A ridiculous song whose video satirises the video for The Verve’s Bittersweet Symphony. Fat Les was a collaboration between Alex James from Blur, the actor Keith Allen (father to Lily Allen) and the artist Damien Hirst. Two years later, they would record a version of Jerusalem which was the official England anthem for Euro 2000.
“Wavin’ Flag” by K’Naan. This wasn’t the official song for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, but was instead Coca-Cola’s promotional song. The official song was by Shakira, who is not from Africa, whereas K’Naan hails from Somalia and so it probably should have been the official song.
“Eat My Goal” by Collapsed Lung. Collapsed Lung were a bit of a one-hit wonder; they did record other songs, but this is the song most people would know them for. A former member of Collapsed Lung now performs as Mr B The Gentleman Rhymer, who we would have seen in Leeds had it not been for me being in hospital.
“Sven Sven Sven” by Bell & Spurling. Sven-Göran Eriksson was the first England manager who wasn’t English and was a rather controversial hiring at the time. However, he led England through a reasonably good period in the early 2000s, including two World Cups in 2002 and 2006, and a 5-1 win over Germany in 2001. This song honoured that rather historic win.
“We’re on the Ball” by Ant & Dec. We’re back in 2002 and this was England’s official song for that year’s World Cup. Ant & Dec found fame as actors on the Children’s BBC series Byker Grove, but then had a music career in the mid 1990s. This, however, came out once they were well established as TV presenters.
“Southgate You’re The One (Football’s Coming Home Again)” by Atomic Kitten. “Whole Again” was one of Atomic Kitten’s better known singles from 2001; 20 years later, it was re-released for Euro 2020 – which, thanks to the pandemic, was delayed to 2021. This new version with changed lyrics honours Gareth Southgate, who managed England for 8 years between 2016 and 2024, including the last time England reached the World Cup semi-finals in 2018. Maybe I shouldn’t mention his missed penalty at Euro 96.
“All Together Now” by The Farm. A song about the Christmas Day Truce in the First World War, where both sides ended up playing football against each other, and later used by Sky Sports for their football coverage in the 2000s.

Back from our holidays

July 27, 2024 by Neil Turner

This is another pre-recorded post – I’m actually writing this a couple of weeks ahead of time – but by the time you read this, we’ll be back from our 2024 summer holiday. We went to Northumberland, and stayed in the coastal village of Seahouses.

As mentioned in my domestic holidays post, we decided to have a holiday in England as my dad has had some periods of ill health recently, and wouldn’t have managed the driving that we normally do when we go to France. But it was also an opportunity to visit somewhere that I’ve only ever passed through; I haven’t had the chance to actually see some of the places that we’ve visited before properly. Which, considering that Northumberland is only three hours away by car, is a bit of a shame.

Consent

I also didn’t want to talk about where we were going in advance. Now, whilst this blog doesn’t attract the readership that it once did, I am also conscious that what I write here is public. And so I don’t really want to state exactly where I am at any given time, just in case someone uses that information against me. Of course, you may just decide that you like me and want to meet up with me, but I’d rather you didn’t – or at least, you contact me first and get my consent.

And it’s with consent in mind that covers my other reason for being vague about where I’m going. When it comes to my holidays, it isn’t just me going but my parents, my wife and our eight-year-old. And it’s our eight-year-old in particular whose identity I want to protect. I avoid using their actual name or gender on here, because they are too young to give informed consent for this to be public information. I don’t think they’re old enough to have a conversation about what a blog is, or that any information that I put up about them is public and likely to be available forever. Because even if I delete old posts (and a lot are missing), they may live on in places like the Web Archive.

Our eight-year-old watches lots of videos on YouTube Kids now (which is part of the reason for us cancelling Disney+), and many of these feature young kids. Now, obviously their parents are more comfortable with this, but it makes me cringe. It’s worth reading this Teen Vogue article about kids of influencers. I want my child to enjoy their time as a child, and I don’t want to have a difficult conversation when they’re older about all the things that I’ve shared about them in public.

Anyway, back to the holiday

Okay, so this blog post didn’t quite go the way I expected it to. Once I’ve had time to download and edit the photos that I’ve taken, I’ll be posting a series of blog posts about the things that we did whilst we were away.