Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to minimise the financial impact on the NHS of the availability on prescription of paracetamol and other basic painkillers.

Clinicians are responsible for making prescribing decisions for their patients, taking into account best prescribing practice and the local commissioning decisions of their respective clinical commissioning groups (CCGs). A General Practitioner (GP) is able to prescribe any product on the National Health Service they consider necessary for the treatment of their patient unless it is listed in Schedules 1 or 2 to the NHS (General Medical Services Contracts) (Prescription of Drugs etc.) Regulations 2004. GPs and other prescribers are ultimately responsible for their own prescribing decisions. Where doctors prescribe products that are available over the counter, we expect that to happen for good clinical reasons and represent value for money to the NHS.