Cardiovascular drugs are the most commonly prescribed medicines in England, with four of the top five drugs dispensed last year used to treat cardiovascular disease (CVD), the NHS has revealed.Simvastatin, ramipril, aspirin and bendroflumethiazide accounted for more than 109 million of the 886m items dispensed in 2009, according to data from the NHS Information Centre. However, despite contributing to 12 per cent of prescription volume, the drugs made up less than 2 per cent of the £8.5 billion NHS drugs bill.
Net ingredient cost (£millions) per BNF chapter, 2009
Rounding out the top five was levothyroxine, with almost 22 million items dispensed.Pharmacists on Twitter were unable to predict the result, with guesses of the most commonly dispensed items including paracetamol, metformin and salbutamol – all of which made the top twenty.The most expensive BNF category by ingredient cost was drugs used in diabetes(chapter 6.1), with the 35.5m items dispensed costing the NHS £634m in 2009 – a rise of more than 40 per cent in the past five years. However, prevalence of diabetes in England had only increased from 3.3 per cent to 4.1 per cent of the population in the same timeframe. Individually, the most expensive drugs by net ingredient cost were fluticasone propionate (£366m), atorvastatin (£322m) and budesonide (£143m). Enteral nutrition and glucose blood testing reagents also made the top five items by expenditure, costing the NHS £195m and £145m respectively last year.The average ingredient cost per prescription item fell 24p compared with 2008 to £9.64. Two-thirds of medicines dispensed were generics, although these represented only 28 per cent of the total medicines spend.
Prescription items dispensed (millions) per BNF chapter, 2009
