The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 275 No 7367 p329
17 September 2005

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NHS medicines bill declines

NHS spending on medicines in the UK has grown more slowly than the rest of NHS spending since 1999, according to the latest Compendium of Health Statistics launched by the Office of Health Economics this week.

Since 1997 the medicines bill has fallen from 12.7 per cent of total NHS expenditure to 12.2 per cent in 2004.

The cost of prescriptions has increased in real terms by an average of 6.2 per cent per year from 1999–2004, due to a rise in number of items prescribed and the rising cost per item.