Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 25 April 2013

Public Accounts Committee

2011 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 40 - Health Service Executive
Health Service Executive Financial Statements 2011

12:10 pm

Mr. Tony O'Brien:

Yes. It is balanced - negatively balanced - by those drugs that are most expensive also tending to come with the heaviest marketing budgets and consequently that is the name that tends to be in a person's mind when they are considering prescribing. We also have to recognise that general practitioners operate in fairly pressurised environments - they have a waiting room and they have patients. At the point at which they are describing what to prescribe, we need to make it as easy as possible for them to know at that point what the cheapest clinically effective option is. In tandem with this medicines management programme, which is a broadly based thing, we are also developing a desktop system which will enable them from their prescriber screen to see clearly which will be the cheapest alternative. We are intending to roll that out during the course of this year as well. So we have to make it as easy as possible for professionals to make the right choice on the basis that by and large that is what they will wish to do.

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