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 potential savings to the NHS from reducing the number of failed or repeated prescriptions for the same item.

No specific assessment has been made.

As part of providing National Health Service pharmaceutical services, pharmacy contractors are required to dispense all prescriptions reasonably promptly. If there is an issue with a prescription, such as an error on the prescription or duplicate prescriptions, pharmacy teams are expected to raise the issue with the patient and use their professional judgement on how to proceed. This may include referring back to the general practitioner (GP) if the prescription needs to be changed, for example if the product prescribed is not available and the GP needs to consider what alternative would be suitable. If a prescription is not dispensed to the patient, the pharmacy will not be paid for that prescription.

Prescribers are responsible for ensuring that suitable arrangements are in place for monitoring, follow-up, and review of any prescription-only medicines. Prescribers, pharmacies, and patients share responsibility to ensure patients are only receiving the medication they require.