BMA Response To The Public Accounts Committee Report On Prescribing Costs In Primary Care, UK

Main Category: Primary Care / General Practice
Article Date: 21 Jan 2008 - 2:00 PDT

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The BMA endorses the view that generic drugs should be prescribed wherever possible and believes doctors should be encouraged to prescribe generic medicines, providing the standard of these drugs is monitored for quality.

Commenting on the report from the Public Accounts Committee released looking at prescribing costs in primary care, Dr Bill Beeby, Chairman of the GP Committee's Clinical and Prescribing sub-committee said:

"GPs in the UK are among the highest prescribers of generic medication in Europe and the level of generic prescribing in the UK is close to the maximum achievable. Yet there are times when it is not always appropriate to prescribe generic drugs - GPs have to decide what is in the best interests of an individual patient and prescribe accordingly.

"Citing how much pharmaceutical companies spend is not evidence of GPs being swayed by their advertising. In a free and open market GPs sift the masses of data they receive from journals, Primary Care Trust prescribing advisers, experts, postgraduate education and pharmaceutical companies. The National Audit Office survey showed that four out of five GPs rely on official NHS sources for their prescribing information.

"The PAC report acknowledges that there has been a substantial increase in prescribing generic drugs in recent years and with just over 2% of the overall drugs bill identified as potential savings1 it shows that the official advice is already being heeded."

Note:

1) The National Audit Office has estimated £200 million a year could be saved without affecting clinical outcomes. This equates to 2.4% of the Primary Care drugs bill for 2008, which was £8.2bn.

http://www.bma.org.uk