Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what the cost to the public purse is for a prescription of paracetamol.
The net ingredient cost of paracetamol items prescribed in the United Kingdom and dispensed in England in each of the last five years is provided in the table below. The cost reported is at reimbursement prices. This does not take account of the margin that pharmacies earn on the medicines they dispense. This margin is subsequently taken into account as contributing towards the target level of funding for community pharmacy as part of the community pharmacy contractual framework.
Net Ingredient Cost (NIC) per prescription items of paracetamol dispensed in England in each financial year within British National Formulary 4.7.1 non-opioid analgesics
Financial Year | NIC | Items | NIC per Item |
2012/13 | £73,793,906 | 21,963,186 | £3.36 |
2013/14 | £83,146,567 | 22,616,462 | £3.68 |
2014/15 | £86,884,281 | 23,326,577 | £3.72 |
2015/16 | £84,863,269 | 22,664,359 | £3.74 |
2016/17 | £70,187,088 | 21,740,142 | £3.23 |
Source: Prescription Cost Analysis (PCA)