According to the Daily Telegraph:
Cash-strapped health authorities are doubling the effective cost of medicines for some patients with long-term conditions. They are urging GPs to reduce the number of pills on a given prescription, which now cost £7.40 a time in England. In some cases the number of pills per prescription has halved.
While health authorities say the guidance is to help reduce the NHS bill for wasted medicines - estimated at up to £300 million a year - there is suspicion that health authorities are increasingly resorting to the measure for financial reasons.
Health care trusts have been asked to changed their guidance to GPs in order to get them to issue shorter prescriptions for some patients.
Our friend and colleague David Taylor, professor of pharmaceutical policy at the University of London, warned that shorter prescriptions for those who were "well established" on medications could actually increase costs because of higher dispensing fees.
He said: "You need a flexible approach and not a rigid rule."
David Stout, chief executive of the PCT Network (one of the largest health care trusts), emphasized the prescription rationing idea was to save money through cutting waste, rather than increasing prescription charge revenue.
Further, study after study demonstrates that the more frequently a patient has to refill a prescription, the more likely that patient is not to refill that prescription.
Non-compliance is a bad strategy for cost-containment.
