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from Eastwood Group Practice
Generic vs Branded - planned medication changes
Prescribing within the NHS should be as cost-effective as possible. One of the ways this is achieved is through prescribing the generic formulation instead of the branded formulation (i.e perindopril vs coversyl). This is usually cheaper (as many companies can produce the medication) and increases the stock availability to the chemist.
A common example of this can be found with the pain killer ibuprofen. Nurofen (a common branded version of ibuprofen) retails at £3.69 for 24 tablets, while Tesco's own costs just £0.28 for 24 tablets. Interestingly the world wide sales of neurofen last year were over £1.9 billion pounds. If Tesco's own were prescribed instead this would have saved our pockets £1.76 billion pounds.
Currently over 90% of the medications prescribed at Eastwood Group Practice are as generics. However there are some exceptions to the rule that generic prescriptions are cheaper, and occasionally a 'branded version' will be better value. Similarly, changes can be made with the formulation of certain medications by switching from a modified-released to a normal tablet formulation, retaining the clinical benefit while reducing the associated costs.
It must be stressed however, that this can occur in only certain types of medications and that for some conditions, such as Epilepsy, and Parkinson's disease and some cardiac medications it is important to prescribe a 'branded' medication to prevent variability in the bioavailability of the drug with different formulations.
The PCT and the practice has identified several drugs which would be cost-effective to switch. We plan over the next few months to make these changes, and patients who are taking these medications will be informed either through script alerts, or in attached advice leaflets, and also through general medication reviews.
Planned Changes
- Mesalazine tabs MR ---> Mesrem MR
- Isosorbide Mononitrate XL 60mg ---> Monomil XL 60mg
- Zoladex injection ---> Leuprorelin injection
- Isotard XL 60mg ---> Monomil XL 60mg
- Fentanyl patch ---> Matrifen patch
- Doxazosin MR ---> Doxazosin
- Gliclazide MR (30mg) ---> Gliclazide 80mg
- Venlafaxine XL ---> Venaxx XL
- Seretide Acuhlaer/Evohlaer ---> Fostair (in certain patient groups)
- Co-codamol 30/500 ---> Zapain
The predicted yearly saving of these changes would be around £40,000 (the equivalent to funding 8 total hip replacements a year). More information will be available on the planned changes later in the year.
