Comradeship // Freechat

In any kind of persuasive writing like this I would focus on facts and outcomes. The formula is generally linking cause and effect back to the previous prescriptions you had. You don't want to use "weasel words" or suggest that you feel the previous prescribed amount was more effective. You want to assert that it was and this downgrade has risks to your health, pointing out the causal relationships between what the medicine does for you and its absence aggravating another condition.

So for example,

My previous rx was 1/day of $medication for migraine prevention. This regimen worked to prevent migraines which cause me $xyz and aggravate my $abc.

Same goes for the soap. You link to your surgical wounds and the risk of infection if you can't adequately bathe as a factual cause-effect chain and need.

I would leave the emotive parts out. If you have a back-and-forth correspondence with the GP and have exhausted the evidence-based reason these cuts are detrimental to your health then you can use an emotional appeal. I would also leave out the pharmacist and avoid acknowledging the cost. The cost is the argumentative lever they are using to degrade your supplies and you don't want to give it any merit in your appeal.

Feel free to post a draft here or dm, and I can offer more concrete feedback.

I agree with the two other comments, it seems a safe and productive avenue for first contact. You have to make noise and become difficult if that's what it takes, otherwise they'll think they can just cut costs on you and you won't complain. It's important to be vocal and not let anything slide. You can also, but probably if this first contact fails, ask them to justify their decisions in writing, tell them you will contact the proper decision-making organs for a confirmation (and follow up of course), etc.

Though I don't know how it works in the UK, I still find that there's a lot of leeway in bureaucracy for individual acting despite all their "reasonable" "processes". If you become "difficult", which means to assert your rights and advocate for yourself (but not threatening, yelling or harassing -- appeal to liberal values), there's a good chance they'll think it's easier to let you keep what you have rather than take it away from you. If you haven't already you should normalize asking them to justify all their decisions regarding your health to you in writing. Every time they send a decision, send back a letter/email/call asking why was this decision made and how?

Applying just the right amount of pressure for the right thing will often yield the desired result. And I say this as someone who's normally pretty chill with bureaucracy lol. But sometimes you really have to drive the point home to make them understand how much they're fucking you over and that this isn't just numbers on a spreadsheet but has real consequences.

So in this case I would echo the other comments and you should start by describing the outcome of the lack of medication. This will also prompt a reply. You could also point out that the neurologist -- a specialist who initially prescribed the medication -- prescribed one a day, and you don't understand why this was suddenly revised to 8 a month. At the end of the day the doctor's job is to give patients the least amount of medicine required to treat them, or at least I hope that's as low as they get. If their lower estimate is wrong then it needs to get bumped up and there's no two ways about it.

Here's something that helped me once (and continuously since). I was trying to get diagnosed in order to get a prescription, but the wait time for a free assessment was multiple years. After trying every avenue, I genuinely gave up on that, but I knew that there are recreational drugs that work similarly for me. So I just vented to my doctor and said exactly that - I know that you're not willing to prescribe the meds without the official diagnosis and that's okay, I understand. So I'll just have to buy another drug that helps off the street. And he was like "okay, I'm even more uncomfortable with you doing that. Fine then, let's start you on the prescription meds". It's crazy that it took this to get any help, and it still limits me in fully exploring the optimal combinations without the diagnosis, but I'm still super thankful to my doc for that. At least I won't od on a random batch with some extra fentanyl mixed in.