§ Mr. Gryllsasked the Secretary of State for Social Services for how long the "Drug and Therapeutics Bulletin" has been made generally available to doctors in Northern Ireland.
§ Dr. VaughanI understand from my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland that the "Drug and Therapeutics Bulletin" has been made available at public expense to doctors in Northern Ireland since October 1963.
§ Mr. Gryllsasked the Secretary of State for Social Services (1) whether the objective in distributing "Drug and Therapeutics Bulletin" to all doctors in England, Scotland and Wales is to encourage less prescribing or more commercial prescribing;
(2) what additional public expenditure will be involved in providing free copies of "Drug and Therapeutics Bulletin" to all general practitioners and hospital doctors in England, Scotland and Wales.
§ Dr. VaughanI understand from my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland that the "Drug and Therapeutics Bulletin" is not distributed at public expense to doctors in Scotland.
The Department of Health and Social Security and the Welsh Office finance the distribution of the bulletin to National Health Service doctors in their early years in practice as an integral part of the Departments' educative programme aimed at improving the effectiveness of prescribing by doctors. Arrangements have been made to extend the distribution of the bulletin to all prescribing doctors in the NHS in England and Wales from 29 August 1980; the estimated additional 221W cost of this extended distribution is £260,000 per annum.