[HPsauce]

GPs will try to get you to buy over-the-counter stuff if you can as it saves their budgets money. Fair enough if you can afford it and are able to get it. In many cases it's actually cheaper too so nothing to complain about. But we're in strange times.....

It's a bit weird sometimes, I remember sitting with my GP some years ago discussing some medication that I have to take "forever" and querying why I'd been changed from a specific brand (which worked well) to a generic (which didn't due to the other ingredients being different) and we discovered they were all the same price!
The actual answer was inexplicable, but the end result was that my prescription was changed from the generic name of the drug to the specific brand, so since then I've had the one that works for me with minimal side effects. I think only one or two other patients in my area take the same stuff so the pharmacy were just doing what they'd been told - order by generic name if you can as it's usually cheaper. Stupidly it's not even an expensive drug, so the savings were probably at best going to be less than the effort involved and in this case zero!
Only slight problem I might have is that the branded stuff I take is mostly made in Spain (Barcelona!)... (though I do have several months supply)