Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how much the NHS in England has spent on prescribing (a) paracetamol and (b) Viagra in the last five years.
The information requested is provided below.
Table 1: Net ingredient cost (NIC) of paracetamol prescriptions written in the United Kingdom and dispensed in the community, in England 1 | |
Year | NIC (£000’s) |
2011 | 61,270.1 |
2012 | 72,039.0 |
2013 | 81,565.2 |
2014 | 85,081.2 |
2015 | 87,619.0 |
Source: Prescription Cost Analysis (PCA) provided by the Health and Social Care Information Centre
Note:
1 As defined by British National Formulary (BNF) 4.7.1 non-opioid analgesics
Table 2: Net ingredient cost (NIC) of Viagra and sildenafil prescriptions written in the UK and dispensed in the community, in England 1, 2 | ||
|
| NIC (£000’s) |
Year | Viagra | Sildenafil, including Viagra 3 |
2011 | 40,399.7 | 40,872.8 |
2012 | 39,814.8 | 40,309.0 |
2013 | 17,436.7 | 31,835.1 |
2014 | 1,096.2 | 4,476.0 |
2015 | 967.1 | 5,708.0 |
Source: PCA provided by the Health and Social Care Information Centre
Note:
1 As defined by BNF 7.4.5 drugs for erectile dysfunction.
2 In June 2013, Viagra lost its UK patent. Following this, the price of Viagra and generically available preparations of sildenafil dropped considerably.
3 For 2011 and 2012, prior to the availability of generic sildenafil, the data shows some prescription items reported as ‘sildenafil’. These refer to oral liquid special preparations. These are likely to have been requested for patients who had a clinical need for Viagra but have conditions that mean they were unable to swallow tablets. Oral liquid special preparations continued to be available after 2012.