Don't swallow up your NHS

Did you know that every year NHS East Riding of Yorkshire Clinical Commissioning Group spends around £1million on medicines that patients in the East Riding of Yorkshire get for free on prescription which could be bought over the counter for pennies?

Last year over £500,000 was spent on dispensing painkillers alone. Painkillers such as paracetamol are widely available in supermarkets and local chemists and cost around 1p per tablet, compared to 3p per tablet on the NHS.

Getting medicine on prescription costs much more than buying over the counter due to your doctor’s and local pharmacist’s time taken in dealing with appointments, handling prescriptions and dispensing medication.

We believe this money could be better spent on essential health care services that benefit everyone, which is why have been looking at how we can do things differently.

We have made some changes to how we prescribe some medicines that can easily be bought at a supermarket or chemist, we think these are common sense changes that will help to bring down our prescription spend without impacting on health and social care.

In our recent prescribing survey 72% of respondents agreed with our decision to ask people to buy their own items when available at a lower cost at chemists and supermarkets.

Click here to download our leaflet for more information.