Drug rationing in the UK National Health Service. Current status and future prospects

Abstract

There are major problems in attempting to ration drug use in the UK. These include the large indigenous pharmaceutical industry, the nature of funding of drugs within the National Health Service (NHS) and the political sensitivities of rationing. Rationing of services within the NHS has therefore usually been implicit rather than explicit, and there is little public debate about rationing of health services. In relation to drug therapy, prescribing in primary care technically can only be rationed by encouraging the general practitioner (GP) to contain his or her own costs-effectively moving the difficult decision to the GP. Direct incentives to the GP, in the form of incentive payments or by fundholding seem to have some success in containing costs, largely by simple generic substitution. There are established systems in hospitals to control the costs of drugs, including formularies and drug management committees. Hospitals commonly try to transfer drug costs to the GP budget. While in part this is clinically appropriate, it can lead to tensions. Health authorities and GP fundholders now include prescribing, particularly at this interface, in their contracts with hospitals. Economic evaluations currently play little part in aiding decisions about choice of drug. These decisions tend to be dominated by the need for short term cost containment in the UK. Recent reforms of the NHS have moved responsibility for the rationing of services to the local authorities or purchasers; this might in time create an additional, local hurdle for pharmaceutical companies trying to market new drugs. A proposal to introduce a national limited formulary in which drugs will be selected partly on the basis of an economic evaluation seems impractical, although similar ideas might be further developed.