Paracetamol and Viagra

(asked on 13th June 2016) - View Source

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.


Answered by
Alistair Burt Portrait
Alistair Burt
This question was answered on 27th June 2016

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.

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