Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what recent assessment his Department has made of the effect on the level of the NHS budget of changes in the prices of drugs.

For unbranded generic medicines the Department relies on competition in the market to keep prices down. Prices therefore reflect supply and demand and differ from one day to the other, from customer to customer and are volume dependant. Therefore, no such assessment has been made.

Branded medicines are the subject of price control under the Pharmaceutical Price Regulation Scheme (PPRS) and statutory scheme. Except in exceptional circumstances, the Department does not allow increases to the National Health Service list price under these schemes. Where price increases were agreed under the PPRS, the Department’s best estimate of additional cost was approximately £550,000 in 2015.