Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what the cost to the public purse is for free prescriptions for people over the age of 60.

There were 781 million items with a combined total net ingredient cost (NIC) of £5.9 billion dispensed to patients aged 60 years old and over in 2024/2025.

National Health Service patients pay a fixed charge for each prescription item dispensed in primary care, unless they are exempt from prescription charges. All patients aged 60 years old and over are exempt so no prescription charges are collected from these patients.

The flat-rate NHS prescription charge is not related either to the cost of the item prescribed or to the cost to the NHS of dispensing it. As well as the NIC of drugs and appliances, the cost of medicines prescribed in the NHS include the dispensing fees and allowances paid to pharmacists and appliance contractors for the service they provide to the NHS.

To note, the NIC is the basic price of a drug excluding value-added tax. It does not take account of discounts, dispensing costs, fees or prescription charges income. The data is taken from supplementary data alongside official Prescription Cost Analysis statistics, for 2024/2025.