Government plans put primary care at the forefront of the drive to improve the NHS. By 2004, 75 per cent of the money that the NHS spends will be channelled through PCTs. PCTs are responsible for assessing, and commissioning for, the health needs of their population. This includes managing prescribing spending.
Primary care prescribing is costly - over £5.5 billion was spent last year - and these costs are rising rapidly. The Department of Health (DoH) takes forecasts of the likely drugs spend into account in determining overall allocations to PCTs. But with the many other competing demands for resources, PCTs are finding it very difficult to fund the growth in prescribing spending, and most are facing a significant funding gap. PCTs are keenly aware of the need to take action to address this situation, making now an appropriate time for us to publish our key findings.
This Bulletin summarises reviews of the management of prescribing completed by the Audit Commission in around 120 PCTs and groups over the past 18 months. The aim of these reviews is to highlight the common challenges associated with managing prescribing, in the context of the national increase in spending on drugs, and to use examples of good practice to illustrate how some PCTs are addressing them.
Included in this report:
- Why focus on primary care subscribing?
- The national picture
- Why is prescribing spending increasing so much?
- What does this mean for PCTs?
- How can PCTs deal with this?
- Managing the increase in prescribing costs
- Strategy and planning
- Influencing subscribers
- Effective prescribing teams
- Joint working with other PCTs
- Relationship with secondary care
- Future work on prescribing