# GPs told to find £1m prescribing savings as NHS trust overspends by millions



## Northerner (Oct 10, 2015)

GPs have been told they must deliver nearly £1m of extra savings on prescribing costs this year after a CCG’s deep financial crisis was compounded by millions of pounds of overspends in secondary care, it has emerged.

The struggling NHS Vale of York CCG set GPs the prescribing targets at its latest board meeting, where managers explained they predict an overspend of nearly £8m at York NHS Foundation Trust.

The latest development comes after 30 GP practices in the area delivered a statement of no confidence in senior managers at the CCG to deliver a drastic financial rescue plan.

Local GP leaders described the practices’ outrage when the chief clinical officer was flying out to visit hospitals in Alaska and Seattle to study alternative health care models, while frontline clinicians struggled to balance the books as part of the recovery plan.

http://www.pulsetoday.co.uk/home/fi...t-overspends-by-millions/20030167.fullarticle

Hope it doesn't lead to people losing their test strips!


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## Matt Cycle (Oct 10, 2015)

This has already started with being forced to accept cheaper (and less suitable for purpose)bg machines and cheaper (and by all accounts poorer quality) pen needles.


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## grovesy (Oct 10, 2015)

The East of England BBC Inside Out programme 2 weeks highlighted how much money is wasted on unused drugs, that cannot be reused and have to be incinerated.


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## trophywench (Oct 10, 2015)

Please explain what conclusion they came to since some of us haven't seen it - eg WHO is prescribing stuff that people don't need? and WHY?


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## KookyCat (Oct 10, 2015)

There are poster all over the place here about only ordering what you need and I've been tipped off that they're trying to make it so that you can order less of everything so people don't "stock pile".  I don't really understand who would order stuff they don't need though.  That said I have a friend who will get antibiotics then put them in her cupboard for when they're needed, so I suppose maybe more people do that than I realised.  I can't even get them to put ketostix and a sharps bin on my prescription and it took me 18 months of constant nagging to get four pots of strips at once, so I can't imagine anyone getting anything unnecessary out of my doctors


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## Matt Cycle (Oct 10, 2015)

I'm not so sure.  There are private sellers on ebay selling accuchek strips.  I can only presume they are stockpiling and then selling them.  Outrageous if it's true as everyone is paying for these through taxes and they are making money out of the NHS.


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## trophywench (Oct 10, 2015)

Well of course - you can't legally do that.  If you obtain stuff on scrip - even if you drop dead before you open a packet - they cannot be sold.  They have to be destroyed.

It is SAID that the private sellers on eBay are registered in third world countries and buy the drugs etc in those countries, where the manufacturers charge less for them anyway because it's a third world country and otherwise people wouldn't be able to afford them.

I have no prob with the stuff being cheaper for the correct ethical reason - but I DO have a problem in them being sold on in non third world countries at a profit for some faceless individual or company.  Who will say in their own defence that it enables him/them to buy more and sell them on 'at home' for a cheaper price to the deserving poor.

I don't believe them !!!


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## Northerner (Oct 10, 2015)

I heard once that some of the ebay stuff is stock nearing its expiry, so not put through normal channels. Don't know if there's any truth in it.


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## grovesy (Oct 10, 2015)

it was not that people did not need it was people ordering the drugs and not using. On one of the amnesty events someone had multiple packs of the same drugs.
If you have access to IPlayer you should be able to download.


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## TheClockworkDodo (Oct 10, 2015)

My Mum just went to her doctor for a nasal spray for her sinuses - the doctor asked if she wanted antibiotics as well, and Mum said "no", but the doctor prescribed them anyway and told Mum to "put them by in case you need them" 

On the other hand - my partner just went to pick up a prescription of my GSF syrup glucose gel from the chemist and found that they'd ordered a mixed box instead of a mint box.  Mixed box includes orange and tropical flavours, obviously not suitable for someone with a citric acid allergy, so my partner said he'd just take the mint ones.  Chemist said they'd have to destroy the rest (even though they are all in individual sealed packages) - and that they'd continue to do this unless I could get "mint" added to my prescription (I've asked GP before and she can't - so I'll have to try writing it on by hand and taking prescription down to chemist instead of sending it electronically).

Realised after R got back that he should have taken the lot and offered the non mint ones to diabetic friends, but he didn't think of it, and it hadn't ocurred to me that the chemist wouldn't remember that I needed mint ones from the last time I ordered them, so mea culpa


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## Northerner (Oct 10, 2015)

I thought the problem only occurred if you had actually left the pharmacy, reason being that they couldn't verify the conditions the items were kept under.


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## grovesy (Oct 10, 2015)

I thought the same too Northerner!


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## TheClockworkDodo (Oct 10, 2015)

Yes, R and I both did too.  We weren't very happy about it, but then I shouldn't have assumed the chemist would have it on record that I needed mint.  I had just forgotten from last time as I only get them about once a year.


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## Bessiemay (Oct 11, 2015)

I just tick the items I need on prescription and take to GPs but how does it work when you have repeats done through pharmacy. I read, maybe on this forum, but may not, of someone who regularly received ketone test strips on repeat that they didn't need but used them to 'save wasting them'. I once tried to buy some at pharmacy when my script wasn't signed and they were around £30 for 10 strips!


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## TheClockworkDodo (Oct 15, 2015)

My repeats are on a secure website - I tick the things I want the way you would on the paper version, and it goes to surgery electronically for GP to accept and then surgery sends it on to pharmacy.


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## Sally71 (Oct 15, 2015)

Bessiemay said:


> I just tick the items I need on prescription and take to GPs but how does it work when you have repeats done through pharmacy. I read, maybe on this forum, but may not, of someone who regularly received ketone test strips on repeat that they didn't need but used them to 'save wasting them'. I once tried to buy some at pharmacy when my script wasn't signed and they were around £30 for 10 strips!



My hubby has a repeat prescription done by the chemist, and every time I pick it up for him they ask me if I want them to do the next repeat and when do we want it.  Hubby has built up a bit of a stock actually, because ir's not a life-threatening condition and he forgets to take the pills sometimes; but I shall get round that by picking them up a month late a few times until we are back on track. He will use them eventually!


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## Bessiemay (Oct 17, 2015)

TheClockworkDodo said:


> My repeats are on a secure website - I tick the things I want the way you would on the paper version, and it goes to surgery electronically for GP to accept and then surgery sends it on to pharmacy.


That sounds sensible


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## trophywench (Oct 18, 2015)

Well they could save a fair bit by not prescribing soluble aspirin - and if they stopped prescribing statins that would save shedloads !


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## grovesy (Oct 18, 2015)

I had the Aspirin stopped quite some time , was told they had changed the guidance on given them as a preventive!
Aspirin is cheap.


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## trophywench (Oct 18, 2015)

I expect you haven't got intermediate claudication, then, have you?  But it's just that it costs the NHS shedloads for the packet of 28 aspirin and the dispensing fee - whereas I can buy 100 for about a quid - but 'they' won't prescribe a giant economy pack! - only 28 days worth.


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## TheClockworkDodo (Oct 18, 2015)

How odd that they won't prescribe aspirin in bulk - I get packs of 100 paracetamol on my prescription, can't think why aspirin would be different.  Or perhaps it's postcode lottery at work.


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## Northerner (Oct 19, 2015)

TheClockworkDodo said:


> How odd that they won't prescribe aspirin in bulk - I get packs of 100 paracetamol on my prescription, can't think why aspirin would be different.  Or perhaps it's postcode lottery at work.


I don't think it's that they won't prescribe in bulk, it's that that is the only way you can get them in bulk, as the pharmacist won't sell you them without a prescription.


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## trophywench (Oct 19, 2015)

Paracetamol - you can have 32 x 500mg sans scrip from a pharmacy, but only 16 from a supermarket!  Aspirin, dunno, only ever bought the 100s.

They are only allowed to prescribe a month's worth of anything at our doctors, so if I'm going on holiday for 3 months I have to order 3 repeats of the whole lot on 3 consecutive days.  Oh yes, it is indeed batty! And then of course it's only exactly 12 weeks, not 3 months .......


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