Evening Telegraph (First Edition)
Board overspent by £7m in 11 months
NHS TAYSIDE’S prescribing bill is continuing to snowball, it has been revealed.
The cash-strapped board overspent by almost £7 million on prescribing costs in 11 months, with each of the region’s three Integrated Joint Boards (IJBs) in the red by more than £2m.
In the corporate financial report for the period from April 2016 to February this year, a £6.953m prescribing overspend was recorded across the region.
It comes with the health board having to save £175m over five years to balance the books.
John O’Connell, chief executive of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, said the overspend would have an impact on frontline care.
He said: “Barely a day goes by without NHS bosses asking for more money so it is important that every penny spent goes as far as it possibly can.
“It is disappointing that there is this level of overspend. Every penny that goes to cover overspending is a penny that cannot go into frontline care.”
Audit Scotland previously put a figure of £1.4m on the amount of returned medication wasted every year in Tayside.
David Coulson, associate director of pharmacy for NHS Tayside, said that for every person who returned a prescription they didn’t need, there could be “10 times that number” who have either kept an unused prescription in a cupboard or flushed it down the toilet.
The £7m from April to February includes £2.287m overspend by Dundee IJB, £2.692m in Angus and £2.065m in Perth.
Bill Bowman, Scottish Conservative MSP for North East Scotland, said: “It appears that NHS Tayside is caught in an overspend triple-lock of i ncreased demand, adverse cost variance and inefficiency that is costing the taxpayer millions.
“If its management information systems are fit for purpose, it will easily explain how this happened and what it is doing to rectify this situation.”
An NHS Tayside spokeswoman said: “NHS Tayside is undertaking a number of initiatives to tackle prescribing costs, including working with GP practices with a focus on addressing variation in prescribing, the introduction of a new Tayside formulary for all prescribers and working with the public to reduce unused and wasted medicines.
“We have also launched a new pathway for the management of chronic pain.
“We spend around £140m per year on prescribing. Of that, unused and wasted medicines cost NHS Tayside approximately £1.4 million per year.
“Sometimes patients or carers order repeat prescriptions they don’t really need and stockpile them at home. This can lead to huge amounts of medicines being wasted.
“Patients should also let their GP or pharmacist know if they have stopped taking any of their medication for any reason.”