Hi Sonix, I am in the UK not Australia. I agree it can be helpful to see a poster’s country of origin in their signature but it can also be recorded in the profile.

Enkel, blood tests on the NHS (National Health Service – the UK public-funded health service) are free. Privately purchased blood tests in the UK can vary in price, but probably about £200 for HCV viral load qualitative; £150 for HCV viral load quantitative; and £80 for FBC and liver function test. So if you intended to have 3 sets of bloods, one at 4/52, one at EOT and finally one at SVR12, NHS monitoring could save you as much as £600 – £700.

Thanks, LG, for pointing out the significance of the cost and budgetary aspect. I think you may be right that this was a factor in my GP thinking it would be more appropriate for the hospital hepatology dept, rather than his GP practice, to do my VL monitoring. However, I’m grateful to my GP for interceding on my behalf with my hospital consultant: this may have been influential in securing my VL monitoring.

Perhaps the most significant thing to emerge from this thread is that of the 5 UK-based people who have broached the issue of generic-monitoring with NHS doctors – whether by GPs or consultants – all but Alsdad – perhaps because he was the first – have managed to get it. So maybe things are not now quite so grim for generic-using patients in the UK as is sometimes thought.