Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps he is taking to substitute the prescribing of high volume branded medicine with generic equivalents.

Generic substitution has happened in secondary care for many years, but is not currently permitted in primary care. The Department consulted on introducing primary care generic substitution in 2010, but did not progress the proposals following concerns about the potential impact on patient safety.

Most general practitioner practices and clinical commissioning groups, formerly primary care trusts, have been pursuing and supporting policies of increasing generic prescribing for 15 years or more. Generic prescribing rates are already relatively high in England at 84.1% in 2014, as reported in the Health and Social Care Information Centre report: Prescriptions dispensed in the community: England 2004-14.