teaser
The amount of money patients spent on their prescriptions has fallen by about £9 million a year following a drop in charges, new figures from health bodies have revealed.
Following the price change from £5 to £4 last April, there was an overall decrease in charges of about £21 million in Scotland.
The news came as the NHS issued figures relating to help in quitting smoking, treatment for obesity and covering prescriptions.
There was a 4% rise in the number of items dispensed in the first nine months of 2009-10 compared to the same time in the previous year, with a total of 66 million prescriptions issued.
Items dispensed where the patient held a valid pre-payment certificate increased by 12% to four million over the same period.
The price of single-item prescriptions is due to drop to £3 from April.
Prescriptions for obesity treatment increased from more than 110,00 to 113,000 between 2007-08 and 2008-09.
Items for the treatment of rheumatic disease and gout rose from 2.45 million to 2.53 million, an increase of 3.2%.
The number of items of treatment to help people stop smoking increased by almost a third to 394,420.
Copyright Press Association 2010
NHS
