There were 13 million hormone replacement therapy (HRT) items prescribed in England during 2023/24, marking a 22% increase since 2022/23.
The estimated number of identified patients prescribed HRT increased by 12%, from 2.3 million in 2022/23 to 2.6 million in 2023/24, according to the NHS Business Services Authority’s (NHSBSA) annual report on HRT prescribing.
Patients aged 50 to 54 were the largest group of identified patients at 640,000, representing almost a quarter of all identified patients prescribed HRT in 2023/24.
The report also laid bare health inequalities, with the least deprived areas in England having more than twice as many identified patients prescribed HRT compared to the most deprived areas.
The most commonly prescribed HRT item was utrogestan 100mg tablets. This was the BNF presentation with both the highest number of items prescribed and identified patients in 2023/24.
In all, prescribing of utrogestan 100mg tablets increased by 42% to 1.3 million items, up from 940,000 items in 2022/23.
The NHSBSA publication also showed that 1.9 million items were issued to patients with the the HRT Prescription Prepayment Certificate (HRT PPC) in 2023/24.
The reduced-cost certificate, introduced in April 2023, covers an unlimited number of listed HRT medicines for 12 months, for the cost of two single prescription charges, currently standing at £19.30.
The proportion of HRT items for which an HRT PPC was used was 14.5% throughout 2023/24. It had increased to to 21% by June 2024, compared to 9.7% in June 2023.
It would be worth doing similar for other very important conditions so patients can get them for cheap, like maybe hypertension, ischemic heart disease, asthma, COPD, stroke, etc etc where there is nothing to help and a yearly prescription costs in the 100s. Lets treat conditions that are really life-threatening in the same way as menopause? just a thought.