The Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee (PSNC) have released 3 sets of price concession price lists for February 2018. Once again, the total amount for England for the month has reduced: we’ve estimated the impact as £9.37 million for February 2018, although this is based on December 2017 data (the latest we have), and is therefore likely to reduce slightly (as February has fewer days).

The total for 2017-18 so far is £308.7 million, although the further impact is probably greater as some formerly low-cost generics are not considerably more expensive. For example levetiracetam 1g tablets, used in epilepsy, were £5.49/60 in July 2017, and in January 2018, following a spell as a price concession, increased to £36.07/tablets.

As always, all the info at CCG level can be found on the Google Sheet here.

At the Bennett Institute we are currently planning a full analysis of what the problems with generic availability and price changes cost the NHS in 2017-18.

Don’t forget that our Drug Tariff and Price Concessions viewer is freely available here, and is updated on a daily basis! Our ebmbot checks the PSNC and Drug Tariff websites at 2am every morning, and automatically updates the viewer with any new data it finds.

Let us know your thoughts via email at feedback@openprescribing.net, on Twitter or on our Facebook page.