UK NHS Drug Prices Down For First Time In Decade

The UK National Health Service medicines bill topped L4 billion ($6.4 billion) in 1994, and prescriptions rose 11.7 million to more than 523 million. But the manufacturers' price index for pharmaceuticals fell 2% during the year, which is the first decline for a decade and compares to a 2.9% rise for the all-manufacturing index, thus slowing the NHS medicines bill's rate of growth, according to Trevor Jones, director-general of the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry.

Speaking last week at the launch of the ABPI's review of 1994-5, Dr Jones said that despite the overall rise in NHS costs, spending on pharmaceutical services fell as a percentage of Gross Domestic Product in 1994, and remains a "very conservative" 10.8% of NHS costs. Government data show that UK per capita spending on medicines is considerably less than in other industrialized countries such as Japan, the USA and other European Union member states; it is about one-third of the average spending per head of France and Germany.

The NHS drugs bill cannot and should not be seen as an isolated component of overall health care economics, said Dr Jones, and the ABPI will be stressing its commitment to further effort in evidence-based medicine. It will also continue to stress that central control through concepts such as limited lists and national formularies is inappropriate and indeed detrimental to the health and wealth of the nation.