Report finds greater control with prescriptions could save NI health service £54m

Greater control in issuing prescriptions could save the Northern Ireland health service £54 million (€68 million) over a rolling three-year period, a new report has found.

Last year the health service could have saved £19 million if doctors exercised more care and discipline in issuing prescriptions, Kieran Donnelly, head of the Northern Ireland Audit Office said.

If GPs prescribed more lower-cost, clinically effective medicines, significant economies in drug expenditure could be achieved without affecting patient care, he wrote in his report, Primary Care Prescribing.

Reimbursements

Mr Donnelly noted how last year pharmacy contractors received almost £460 million, which included reimbursements of £381 million for dispensing GP prescriptions.

He also said the volume of prescriptions had risen significantly, from 23 million items in 2000 to almost 39 million in 2013.

His report comes in the wake of a recent investigation by the Detail website, which found that Northern Ireland had one of the world’s highest prescription rates for antidepressant medicines. Mr Donnelly said prescriptions dispensed by pharmacies accounted for about 10 per cent of total healthcare spending in Northern Ireland.

Progress

Mr Donnelly said the

Department of Health

had taken a range of actions to reduce prescribing costs, including the greater use of generic medicines. While recognising the progress made, the audit office said there was scope for further improvements.

In particular, it drew attention to variations in the prescribing patterns of local GPs and estimated that in 2013 potential savings of £19 million could have been “realised if all GPs had prescribed as efficiently as those in the average performing practice”.

Mr Donnelly considered that reducing the average costs of prescriptions by 10 per cent over a three-year rolling period could yield savings of £54 million. This was “feasible”, he said.