§ Mr. Adam Butlerasked the Secretary of State for Social Services if she will 60W ber of National Health Service prescriptions for tranquillisers; and if she will indicate the cost of such publications both in actual cost and as a percentage of tranquilliser costs to the National Health Service.
§ Dr. OwenThe Department regularly issues to National Health Service doctors charts and circulars, drawing attention to the cost to the NHS of particular widely-prescribed drugs or groups of drugs. The object is to provide advice which doctors will have in mind when prescribing.
In December 1975 the Department issued a circular, of which copies have been placed in the Library, showing the steep increase in the number of NHS prescriptions for tranquillisers dispensed in recent years. 68,000 copies of the circular were printed and issued at an approximate total cost—including printing, dispatching, postage, and the administration costs estimated to have been incurred in producing the text—of £6,000. This amounts to about 0.05 per cent of £11,100,000 which was the cost to the NHS of tranquillisers dispensed in England and Wales in 1974, the latest year for which figures are available.