It's cheap medi-sin

Docs told to prescribe budget drugs to save cash

CUTS - Branded drugs
CUTS - Branded drugs

By Jamie Lyons, 13/12/2009

PATIENTS' lives will be put at risk under plans to prescribe cheaper drugs, it was claimed yesterday.

Health chiefs want doctors to steer away from expensive brand name medicines to save cash.

But the cheap no-name alternatives can be different - and in some cases could KILL patients.

The Department of Health says it could save £30million a year if docs prescribed generic drugs rather than branded medicines.

But there can be more or less of the active drug in the generic - and their coatings and additives are often different.

Those changes could prove fatal to people with asthma, epilepsy or Parkinson's disease.

Transplant patients also often require very precise medication.

David Prowse of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society said: "We have concerns that we will be obliged to give a different drug to the one named in a prescription. There are sometimes very good reasons for a GP prescribing a particular drug.

"The savings aren't huge and are quite measly when compared to the overall NHS drug budget."

Sue Lyon, a kidney patient from south-east London said: "Messing around with a transplant patient's drugs could be pretty serious. I don't think this has been properly thought through." Tracey Vasey of Scarborough, who has epilepsy, said: "I was given a different brand once and it made me really ill. Now I have to take exactly the same brand all the time. This could have a huge effect on people's lives.

A Department of Health spokesman said: "We're aware of concerns of patients, doctors and pharmacists and will be consulting in the New Year before a decision." jamie.lyons@notw.co.uk

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