General practices use a wide variety of methods for controlling their prescribing costs

In 1994, the Audit Commission suggested a number of ways in which general practices might control their prescribing costs. Avery et al (p 276) observed practices in the Trent region of England to determine how some had low growth in prescribing costs while others had large increases. Practices with low growth in costs had low growth in prescribing volume, limited uptake of new and expensive drugs, reductions in the costs of modified release drugs, and increases in generic prescribing. These practices also had relatively modest increases in costs for important groups of drugs such as lipid lowering agents and drugs for hormone replacement therapy.

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A prescription for improvement? An observational study to identify how general practices vary in their growth in prescribing costs • Commentary: Beware regression to the mean

Anthony J Avery, Sarah Rodgers, Tara Heron, Robert Crombie, David Whynes, Mike Pringle, Darrin Baines, Roland Petchey, and T J Cole
BMJ 2000 321: 276-281. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]