Prescribing costs Fundholders had a head start

EDITOR, - Jean Bradlow and Angela Coulter's findings on the effect of fundholding on general practitioners' prescribing costs1 need to be interpreted with caution. Firstly, as the authors describe in their discussion, the indicative prescribing amounts of fundholding and non-fundholding practices were not derived in the same way. Fundholders had, and used, the opportunity to negotiate their indicative prescribing amounts upwards to take full account of the needs and circumstances of each practice. This included additional allowances …