Wasted drugs 'costing NHS £100m'

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Some doctors over-prescribe, leading patients to stockpile medicines at home, while patients also fail to take drugs dispensed to them, it found.

Other causes of wastage include medicines being dispensed but then going uncollected, and drugs prescribed in hospital being continued unnecessarily at home.

The research, from the National Audit Office (NAO), examined prescribing costs in primary care.

Money could also be saved if GPs prescribed lower-cost medicines, it said, which would have no detrimental effect on patient care.

The Government has already launched a drive to get doctors to prescribe generic statins over the more costly branded versions.

Statins are taken by almost two million Britons to help lower their cholesterol and the Department of Health estimates that at least £85 million a year could be saved by switching to cheaper brands.

The study, from NAO head Sir John Bourn, said switching to lower-cost drugs could save primary care trusts (PCTs) more than £200 million a year.

It found wide variations on the prescribing of cheaper drugs - in the second quarter of 2006/07, the proportion of lower-cost statin prescriptions varied from 28% to 86% across PCTs in England.

A total of £200 million a year could be saved if all PCTs achieved at least the standard of the most efficient 25%, the report said. If all PCTs prescribed as efficiently as the top 10% of PCTs, then more than £300 million could be saved.