GPs wasting money on branded drugs

Primary care doctors are wasting hundreds of millions of pounds a year by prescribing heavily promoted and pricey branded medicines rather than cheaper generics, a parliamentary committee said on Thursday.

The critical report from the Committee of Public Accounts adds to the growing pressure on the pharmaceuticals industry across Europe, where healthcare payers are seeking to rein in runaway healthcare costs as tougher economic times loom.

The government is already renegotiating an agreement with drugs firms over medicine pricing in an attempt to get better value for money.

"The NHS spends each year at least 200 million pounds more than it should as a result of GPs prescribing too high a proportion of higher cost, branded medicines," the committee's chairman Edward Leigh said.

"It's hard to doubt that the blandishments of the pharmaceutical industry are having an effect. But GPs must concentrate more on following official guidelines, increasing the prescribing of generic drugs where clinically appropriate."

Leigh and his colleagues said the industry spent 850 million pounds each year on marketing drugs to GPs and they estimate that unused and wasted drugs cost the NHS well over 100 million pounds a year.

In a bid to stop the waste, the committee said it should be made clear on the packaging how much a medicine costs. Under the health system, nearly 90 percent of prescription items are dispensed free and the rest for a standard charge.

In the 10 years from 1996, the country's primary care drugs bill has increased to 8.2 billion pounds from 4.0 billion, a jump of 60 percent in real terms, the committee said.