Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he takes to ensure that drugs are sold to the NHS at a price which represents value for money to the public purse.

The costs of branded medicines are controlled by the Pharmaceutical Price Regulation Scheme and the statutory scheme for branded medicines. For unbranded generic medicines, the Department encourages competition between suppliers to keep prices down. In primary care, community pharmacies are incentivised to source products at the lowest possible cost and in secondary care competitive tenders ensure value-for-money to the National Health Service. Recent research published in the Milbank Quarterly demonstrated that the United Kingdom pays considerably less for unbranded generic medicines than other countries with a comparable income level.