§ Mr. Michael Morrisasked the Secretary of State for Social Services what is the latest estimate of the number of prescription items per capita in the United States of America, Italy, West Germany, France, Spain, New Zealand, Australia and the United Kingdom.
§ Mr. Kenneth ClarkeAlthough not official figures, recent commercial surveys suggest that the number of prescription items per capita in these countries is as follows:
Number Italy 11.3 West Germany 11.2 France 10.0 Spain 9.6 New Zealand 8.5 Australia 7.7 United Kingdom 6.6 No reliable figures are available for the United States of America.
This is a carefully selected list, as there are also developed countries with lower prescribing levels than the United Kingdom. These statistics are not very useful or relevant to current policy issues as prescribing figures for 299W different countries can be influenced by many factors, in particular the vastly different eligibility rules and public subsidy arrngements within the various national health and insurance systems.
In those countries with apparently higher prescribing levels than in the United Kingdom, their Governments are taking steps to reduce this expenditure.
In the United Kingdom the medical profession itself accepts that current levels could be reduced and agreed some time ago to co-operate with the Government in encouraging more rational and economic prescribing.