Drugs: Expenditure
(asked on 17th November 2020) - View Source
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to the Answer of 5 August 2020 to Question 72910 on Drugs: Expenditure, if he will provide a breakdown of the savings in each month since March 2018.
As a result of improvements at the NHS Business Services Authority in how it stores and reports prescribing data, there have been changes to the drug classification structure and an increase in the number of products included in the over the counter (OTC) product list. This change has particularly affected some OTC items, including vitamins and minerals, emollients and creams. The effect has been to change the total spend on OTC items in each year and the reduction in spend.
After taking account of the changes, the figures now show a reduction in spend of £10 million from the baseline year of 2017-2018 to the last full year of 2019-2020. A review of the guidance is planned for next year, taking into account updates to the evidence, data on impact, feedback from patient groups, and will include a review of expected savings.
The following table shows the net savings, by month, since NHS England and NHS Improvement and National Health Service clinical commissioners published ‘Conditions for which over the counter items should not routinely be prescribed in primary care: Guidance for Clinical Commissioning Groups’.
Financial year | Month | Net Ingredient Cost (millions) | Rolling 12 month Net Ingredient Cost (millions) | Saving over previous 12 months versus 2017/18 financial year (millions) |
2017/18 | March | £43.3 | £521.9 | £0.0 |
2018/19 | April | £41.9 | £521.9 | £0.0 |
2018/19 | May | £44.1 | £519.6 | -£2.2 |
2018/19 | June | £43.4 | £515.6 | -£6.3 |
2018/19 | July | £42.5 | £513.7 | -£8.2 |
2018/19 | August | £42.6 | £514.1 | -£7.8 |
2018/19 | September | £40.1 | £511.4 | -£10.5 |
2018/19 | October | £42.8 | £510.3 | -£11.6 |
2018/19 | November | £40.9 | £507.0 | -£14.9 |
2018/19 | December | £39.7 | £504.5 | -£17.4 |
2018/19 | January | £42.4 | £503.4 | -£18.5 |
2018/19 | February | £38.4 | £502.2 | -£19.7 |
2018/19 | March | £41.8 | £500.7 | -£21.2 |
2019/20 | April | £41.2 | £499.9 | -£21.9 |
2019/20 | May | £44.0 | £499.9 | -£22.0 |
2019/20 | June | £40.9 | £497.4 | -£24.5 |
2019/20 | July | £42.3 | £497.2 | -£24.7 |
2019/20 | August | £43.6 | £498.2 | -£23.7 |
2019/20 | September | £41.3 | £499.5 | -£22.4 |
2019/20 | October | £43.6 | £500.2 | -£21.7 |
2019/20 | November | £41.8 | £501.0 | -£20.9 |
2019/20 | December | £41.8 | £503.2 | -£18.7 |
2019/20 | January | £44.1 | £504.9 | -£17.0 |
2019/20 | February | £40.3 | £506.7 | -£15.2 |
2019/20 | March | £46.8 | £511.7 | -£10.1 |