Warning over cuts to subsidies on drugs advice
Looming cuts to funding for independent prescription advice for doctors could undermine the best use of medicines in the UK, a senior medical figure warned yesterday. Sir Charles George, director of the British Medical Association's BMJ Group, which publishes a range of guides for doctors, said: "We're worried that a number of sources of information about good prescribing have disappeared."
His comments came against a backdrop of concern over a growing trend by the Department of Health to stop subsidising publications for prescribers that are designed to provide objective information free from -pharmaceutical companies' influence.
He was speaking ahead of the launch this week of the latest edition of the twice-yearly British National Formulary, which is produced by the BMJ and which a new survey showed was the preferred medicines reference guide for GPs.
The BNF is distributed free of charge, thanks to government subsidies, to 185,000 prescribers in England alone. However, the DoH threatened at the end of last year to stop subsidising its distribution to medical students in England.
There was a last-minute reprieve after complaints, but Sir George said there had been no assurances that the subsidy to students would not be removed before the next issue of the BNF this autumn.
The threats to the BNF follow a pattern of reductions in government support in England in recent months for other independent assessments of medicines, at a time of growing demand internationally for such information.
The government last year removed the subsidy in England from the Drugs & Therapeutics Bulletin, a source of treatment information for GPs, which has led to subscriptions falling to one-sixth of their previous level.
From the start of this year, it also stopped funding Clinical Evidence, another regular guide produced by BMJ, and Best Treatments, a service that provided information on medicines to patients through the NHS Direct website.
From:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0d1c88e0-d5bf-11db-a5c6-000b5df10621.html
On June 13, 2006 Health Direct questioned the action of cutting the dissemination of best drugs practice as a means of costs savings in Doctors fight to save the Drug and Therapeutics Bulletin drug guidance from government axe
A highly respected and influential journal which gives doctors independent advice on the drugs they prescribe is set to close because the government is withdrawing its funding after 40 years.
The Drug and Therapeutics Bulletin is sent to every doctor in the country and offers what many describe as highly readable guidance on the value of sometimes heavily marketed pills. But the Department of Health has refused to renew its contract.
Senior doctors have signed a statement of protest, and more than 2,000 have written to ministers, including Patricia Hewitt, the health secretary.
DTB is "highly valued and trusted" to give independent and reliable information about drugs, the statement says. Its conclusions "are also widely regarded as a unique counterweight to the influence of the pharmaceutical industry".
Health Direct notes that the closure of the trusted Drug and Therapeutics Bulletin is another sorry example of the Labour government's short term NHS cost cuts. In comparison to the annual £1.4 m cost of the DTB, the NHS's drugs bill is around £11 billion a year.
Even a cursory cost benefit analysis indicates that a 0.1% saving on the drugs bill will pay for the preservation of the DBT eight times over.
His comments came against a backdrop of concern over a growing trend by the Department of Health to stop subsidising publications for prescribers that are designed to provide objective information free from -pharmaceutical companies' influence.
He was speaking ahead of the launch this week of the latest edition of the twice-yearly British National Formulary, which is produced by the BMJ and which a new survey showed was the preferred medicines reference guide for GPs.
The BNF is distributed free of charge, thanks to government subsidies, to 185,000 prescribers in England alone. However, the DoH threatened at the end of last year to stop subsidising its distribution to medical students in England.
There was a last-minute reprieve after complaints, but Sir George said there had been no assurances that the subsidy to students would not be removed before the next issue of the BNF this autumn.
The threats to the BNF follow a pattern of reductions in government support in England in recent months for other independent assessments of medicines, at a time of growing demand internationally for such information.
The government last year removed the subsidy in England from the Drugs & Therapeutics Bulletin, a source of treatment information for GPs, which has led to subscriptions falling to one-sixth of their previous level.
From the start of this year, it also stopped funding Clinical Evidence, another regular guide produced by BMJ, and Best Treatments, a service that provided information on medicines to patients through the NHS Direct website.
From:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0d1c88e0-d5bf-11db-a5c6-000b5df10621.html
On June 13, 2006 Health Direct questioned the action of cutting the dissemination of best drugs practice as a means of costs savings in Doctors fight to save the Drug and Therapeutics Bulletin drug guidance from government axe
A highly respected and influential journal which gives doctors independent advice on the drugs they prescribe is set to close because the government is withdrawing its funding after 40 years.
The Drug and Therapeutics Bulletin is sent to every doctor in the country and offers what many describe as highly readable guidance on the value of sometimes heavily marketed pills. But the Department of Health has refused to renew its contract.
Senior doctors have signed a statement of protest, and more than 2,000 have written to ministers, including Patricia Hewitt, the health secretary.
DTB is "highly valued and trusted" to give independent and reliable information about drugs, the statement says. Its conclusions "are also widely regarded as a unique counterweight to the influence of the pharmaceutical industry".
Health Direct notes that the closure of the trusted Drug and Therapeutics Bulletin is another sorry example of the Labour government's short term NHS cost cuts. In comparison to the annual £1.4 m cost of the DTB, the NHS's drugs bill is around £11 billion a year.
Even a cursory cost benefit analysis indicates that a 0.1% saving on the drugs bill will pay for the preservation of the DBT eight times over.
Labels: BMA, BMJ, drug cutbacks, health direct, NHS closures
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