COST OF MEDICAMENTS (Hansard, 29 July 1953)

THE EARL OF ONSLOW

The available information on the three parts of the Question is set out below:

		Month	Average net ingredient cost	Average on-cost Dispensing fee and container allowance	Average Total
				s.	d.	s.	d.	s.	d.
England and Wales	…	July, 1948	…	1	0¾	1	6¾	2	7½
		August,1952	…	2	5½	1	9	4	2½
		May, 1953	…	2	5	1	9	4	2
Scotland	…	July,1948	…	1	4½	2	0	3	4½
		August, 1952	…	2	10½	2	4¾	5	3¼
		May, 1953	…	3	0	2	5½	5	5½

Part 3. A practitioner may prescribe any drug or medicine and a range of dressings and appliances used in general practice. If the cost of his prescribing appears more than reasonably necessary for proper treatment the matter may be referred to the local medical committee for investigation. If they find that the prescribing was unduly expensive (or it is so decided on appeal) money may be withheld from the practitioner's remuneration. A special unit has been established to examine prescriptions given in England and Wales and prepare details of cases in which prescribing costs appear to be

1146WA

Part 1. I regret that comprehensive information about the movement of wholesale costs of medicaments is not available but the prices of the raw materials of commonly used medicines and dressings supplied under the pharmaceutical services of the National Health Service have decreased by approximately 13 per cent. Since the commencement of the National Health Service.

Part 2. The average cost to the Exchequer per prescription has, on the other hand, risen because (a) the decrease referred to in Part 1 is cloaked by the increase in orders for proprietary products containing these raw materials, and (b) the decrease is offset by the price of certain expensive standard and proprietary drugs introduced and developed in the past two years which are not covered in the 13 per cent. The approximate average cost per prescription as shown in three representative months, with the net ingredient cost and remuneration to chemists shown separately is out below: heavy in relation to those of doctors working in the same locality. Similar information is provided for local medical committees in Scotland.

The Joint Committee on Prescribing of the Central and Scottish Health Services Councils have advised on the prescribing of proprietary preparations and have classified them in categories relating to their therapeutic value. Lists showing the preparations in three of these categories are being sent to doctors, who are being asked, subject: always to their right to prescribe whatever seems to them necessary in the individual case, to avoid 1147WA prescribing preparations that, in the view of the Committee, consist of or contain drugs the therapeutic value of which has not been proved. On the same Committee's advice they have been asked not to prescribe any proprietary preparation advertised direct to the public, and also not to prescribe other proprietary preparations where these are more expensive than corresponding standard products. A price list of proprietary preparations and corresponding standard products will shortly he sent to them. Doctors are also being invited to review their prescribing with the object, where possible, of reducing the frequency and quantities of orders for standard drugs.

Her Majesty's Government have also set in train a series of cost investigations covering a wide range both of proprietary and standard preparations, which are designed to help show whether the prices charged are fair and reasonable in relation to production costs.