§ Mr. Fisherasked the Secretary of State for Social Services what estimate he has made of the percentage of the total bill for medicines saved on the basis that every doctor prescribed generic instead of brand-name drugs.
§ Dr. John Dunwoody:If, in the relatively few cases where there are unbranded products containing the same amounts of the same active ingredients as proprietaries, the former were supplied in preference to the latter, I estimate that the saving to the Health Service would be of the order of £l.3 million a year. The total savings which might result from the wider use of unbranded drugs generally are probably considerable, but I cannot estimate their precise amount because the most appropriate generic alternative to most branded drugs when there is such an alternative, can be determined only in the light of the needs of individual patients.