Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many CCG guidelines have been updated, how much funding has been saved and how much he expects to save in 2018-19 following the consultation on items which should not routinely be prescribed in primary care.

NHS England held a three month consultation between July and October 2017 on draft guidance for clinical commissioning groups’ (CCGs’) proposed restrictions on the routine prescribing of 18 products, totalling £141 million in National Health Service primary care spend. Final statutory guidance ‘Items which should not be routinely prescribed in primary care: Guidance for CCGs’ was published on 30 November 2017.

NHS England is responsible for monitoring the effect of its new guidance relating to items that should not routinely be prescribed in primary care. NHS England does not hold information on how many CCG guidelines have been updated, or how much funding has been saved since the guidance was published. The NHS Business Services Authority has a dashboard which monitors, on a monthly basis, prescribing volume and costs of the 18 products identified in the CCG guidance. NHS England plans to utilise this dashboard to monitor implementation and progress.