Madam, – Martin Wall (Healthplus April 14th) highlights a more than tenfold discrepancy between Government and Opposition in the assessment of savings that could be made if GPs were to prescribe generically.
It would certainly be simpler for GPs to prescribe generically as they are often encouraged to do. However, in order to prescribe economically the present system requires GPs not to prescribe generically, but rather to prescribe the cheapest branded generics.
Other savings could be achieved by therapeutic substitution between classes of drugs and by limiting the indications for new expensive proprietary drugs only to areas where they have proven benefits over cheaper existing drugs.
Of course many factors militate against this, not least the part funding of some acute services by the pharmaceutical industry and also the over-reliance of the medical profession on the industry to sponsor education. – Yours, etc,