Central Southampton primary care group has established a prescribing task group, made up of one GP from each of its 15 practices and prescribing adviser Julia Bowey, on secondment from the South and West regional drug information centre.
The group meets monthly and deals with a range of issues, from formulary and guideline development to repeat prescribing policies. It is chaired by the GP prescribing lead, who is also clinical governance lead and sits on the PCG board.
At the meeting each practice receives a monthly budget-monitoring report from the health authority, with practice-by-practice data on areas including drug spending, generic prescribing and hospital-led prescribing.
The group has set up a prescribing incentive scheme, with 0.5 per cent of its total£5.3m drugs budget top-sliced to pay for it. This money will be available to be shared out among practices which meet the scheme's criteria.
The thrust of work in the PCG's shadow year, Ms Bowey says, has been on raising the proportion of generic prescribing. In March 1998 this lay at 62 per cent and within six months had risen to 67 per cent of prescriptions, which is just under the HA target of 68 per cent.
Ms Bowey also sits as the GPs' representative on the district prescribing committee, which considers issues such as prescribing across the primary/secondary care interface, and high-cost, high-volume drugs. Topics currently under discussion include the introduction of CFC-free asthma inhalers.
Ms Bowey says good-quality comparative data is what makes the GPs act to improve their prescribing: 'Seeing how they compare with the rest of the PCG is a powerful tool. It makes them make the effort.'
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