§ Mr. Carter-Jonesasked the Secretary of State for Social Services if he will list the numbers of prescriptions dispensed in each regional health authority, together with the numbers of yellow card adverse reactions received in the same regions for the last year for which figures are available.
§ Dr. VaughanTotal prescriptions in each regional health authority for the year 1978 are shown in the table below, giving a total for England—after allowance for rounding—of 307,097,000. The total number of yellow card reports of suspected adverse reactions, in the same year, was 8,488; a breakdown of this figure, to show the number of reports received from each regional health authority's area, cannot be obtained without disproportionate time and effort.
504W
PRESCRIPTIONS DISPENSED IN ENGLAND, 1978 BY REGIONAL HEALTH AUTHORITY Northern 21,915,000 Yorkshire 24,132,000 Trent 29,284,000 East Anglia 8,811,000 North-West Thames 22,724,000 North-East Thames 25,164,000 South-East Thames 23,852,000 South-West Thames 18,274,000 Wessex 16,350,000 Oxford 12,046,000 South-Western 19,611,000 West Midlands 34,342,000 Mersey 18,754,000 North-Western 31,840,000
§ Mr. Carter-Jonesasked the Secretary of State for Social Services if he has had any discussions with the pharmaceutical organisations to ascertain whether the stricter use of generic prescribing would ease their members' cash-flow problems and therefore reduce the overall burden on the National Health Service; and if he will make a statement.
§ Dr. VaughanThe pharmaceutical services negotiating committee has not referred to this particular question in any of my recent discussions with it. On the wider aspects of encouraging prescribing by approved name, I refer the hon. Member to my reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Kingswood (Mr. Aspinwall) on Monday, 16 June.