Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment his Department has made of the consistency of the (a) procedures and, (b) prescribing practice Clinical Commissioning Groups.

It is important that the National Health Service achieves the greatest value from the money that it spends. In 2017, the cost of prescriptions dispensed in the community was £9.17 billion, and we know that across England there is significant variation in what is being prescribed and to whom.

NHS England has partnered with NHS Clinical Commissioners to support clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) in ensuring that they use their prescribing resources effectively and deliver the best patient outcomes from the medicines their local population use.

During 2017/18 CCG guidance was published by NHS England and NHS Clinical Commissioners (NHSCC) for:

- Items that should not be routinely prescribed in primary care (November 2017); and

- Conditions for which over the counter items should not routinely be prescribed in primary care (March 2018).

The aim of this is to reduce unwarranted variation in prescribing, and introduce a more equitable framework from which CCGs can take individual and local implementation decisions.