Prescription Drugs

The National Health Service and its partner organisations are responding to the challenge of overprescribing, as set out in the Government’s review of overprescribing, Good for you, good for us, good for everybody, in September 2021. There are currently no plans to undertake a further review. Progress has been made to implement the recommendations of that review, for example:

- implementing the national medicines optimisation opportunities for integrated care boards (ICBs), or recommendations three and 13;

- addressing problematic polypharmacy, when there is potential harm associated with taking multiple medicines, or recommendations eight and nine;

- delivering structured medication reviews, or recommendation eight; and

- publication of a repeat prescribing toolkit and oversupply dashboard to support general practices to identify oversupply and improve repeat prescribing processes, or recommendation seven.

Offering treatments that are not medicines is also key to addressing overprescribing. Many other initiatives delivered across the NHS contribute towards this. These include delivery of personalised care and shared decision-making, NHS Talking Therapies for anxiety and depression, and social prescribing.

We are continuing to address issues with the prescribing of medicines in line with the NHS’ 2025/26 priorities and operational planning guidance. It is not possible to quantify the overall cost of overprescribing.