Excessive GP prescribing

tablets and capsulesExcess GP prescribing is almost certainly responsible for massive wastage of NHS funds, increasing antibiotic resistance, and the vast quantities of unwanted pharmaceuticals stored at home, eventually to find their way into domestic refuse or down the drain.

GPs have on several occasions sought to blame patients for their own poor prescribing practices. It’s YOUR fault that they over-prescribe, for having the temerity to ask for repeat prescriptions, and worse, not taking the drugs that have been provided!

Cutting medicines waste through prescription control

Is this really a plausible explanation for over-prescribing and medicines waste?  Of course it isn’t.

We on the Clinical Waste Discussion Forum have made our position clear, placing blame on the lax prescribing practices of GPs that we believe to be the root cause of this problem.

NHS Isle of Wight drug waste reduction

It’s all your fault!

 

Now some new information has appeared, linking over-prescription of antibiotics by GPs with a powerful cost driver.  The study, published in the British Journal of General Practice, compared the prescribing rates of more than 95% of all GP surgeries in England to a survey of patient satisfaction.

Those satisfaction scores are used to determine how much GPs get paid.

Understandably, patients’ satisfaction rose when they were listened to or carefully examined.

A study last year warned that up to half of all prescriptions of antibiotics could be inappropriate – given to patients suffering coughs, colds, sore throats and the flu – none of which can be treated with antibiotics.

In this study, doctors who prescribed 25% fewer antibiotics saw a modest reduction in patient satisfaction with them or with their surgery. The General Practice Patient Survey, which invites nearly three million adults registered with GPs in England to comment on the quality of their care every year, is also a factor taken into account in GPs’ performance-related pay.

So, that’s the answer.  GOPs prescribe, and crucially over-prescribe, antibiotics and probably most other drugs to keep patients happy and thereby line their pockets.  Greed!

Perhaps the Environment Agency will address that problem directly, instead of fussing about the minutiae of an odd tablet or capsule that finds its way into a clinical waste sack.  But somehow I think that would be too much effort, to attack the problem at source when there are easier but much less appropriate targets to go for.

 

 

 

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