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DH targets a further 5% rise in generic scripts
10 Mar 10
The Department of Health believes generic substitution by pharmacists can drive up generic use by as much as five percentage points, Pulse has learned.
The DH's community pharmacy policy team revealed the results of their modelling studies at an official listening event on the generic substitution proposals.
The team suggested that generic prescribing rates – currently at 83% - could be boosted to 88% under the policy, and that this was the ‘main driver’.
Under the plans set out in January, pharmacists will be encouraged to routinely switch drugs prescribed by a GP to a generic, unless the GP specifies otherwise, which the DH claims the scheme could save the NHS £41m a year.
A spokesperson for the DH said: ‘Even though GPs do have a very high rate of generic prescribing, there’s still more to be gained, and we think an additional 5% of all drugs could have been prescribed and dispensed as a generics.’
Dr Bill Beeby, a GP in Middlesbrough and chair of the GPC’s clinical and prescribing sub-committee, said the claim was ‘full of inefficiencies and flaws and insulting to the professionalism of GPs.’
‘I have no idea where that 5% figure came from. They have not shared any of their data so they can’t expect us to be supportive. Because of the high volume involved increasing the use of generics probably will generate cost savings.
‘But that ignores the reason why some patients are not being prescribed a generic – because there’s a genuine clinical need.’
Readers' comments
To be honest i think they should fix the scanner at the ppa which read the prescritions in the first place.
I'd be more impressed if they focussed more on quality than price. Or, even, gave quality the same consideration as price. I take a lot of drugs (16), and despite what NICE and the DH fondly believe (or would like us to believe, which isn't the same thing at all). I know for a fact that the quality of generic drugs varies widely. One of the worst offenders is Salbutamol (Ventolin). Nebules are fine (the dose probably masks any shortcomings), but the inhalers - pun intended - suck. Delivery is unreliable, efficacy unpredictable and mostly poor, and valve quality very low. (I've been taking the stuff for 40 years - I do know what I'm talking about.) Luckily I have a local pharmacist who knows the situation, and dispenses Ventolin. How long this will be allowed to continue, I don't know, but if it stops I, for one, will be in serious trouble, and I may have to resort to importing my own.
Having achieved max of 79-82% I don't know what more one can do esp if we need to Px Oral contraceptives, IBS and antiepileptic drugs by brand and also dressings which consume a large budget of mine having poor soles in the nursing homes which have no generic substitutes and also liquid feeds!!
Half-baked and ridiculous idea. After years of effort by the PCTs to drive generic switching, I guess they have now hit a plateau - so are forced into looking at alternative 'solutions'. Sadly, as a practicing pharmacist, I wouldn't touch this idea with a bargepole. The few remaining patients on branded products are precisely the ones that have been previously assessed, and judged not suitable for switching. Perhaps if this had been suggested 10 years ago, it might have been viable. Now, it most certainly is not, and is simply a cynical ploy to cut 'incentive' costs, at the expense of creating bad feeling between professions.