Growth in the number of prescription items dispensed in the community dropped to less than 2% last year, NHS data for England shows.

Dispensing volume grew by just 1.8%, after remaining at 3% for the previous two years, according to figures published by the Health and Social Care Information Centre (HSCIC) last week (April 7).

The annual number of items dispensed first passed the 1 billion mark in 2012.
 

Prescriptions dispensed in England in 2015 – the figures

• The cost of prescriptions reached £9.27bn. This was an increase of 4.7% from 2014, when the cost was £8.85bn.
   
• The number of prescription items dispensed was 1.08bn, a 1.8% increase from 1.06bn in 2014.
   
• Simvastatin was the most prescribed drug in England in 2015, with 34.4 million items dispensed.
   
• Of the top 20 most prescribed drugs, metformin hydrochloride prescriptions accounted for the highest net ingredient cost, with 19.8m items costing £120.4m.
   
• Fluticasone propionate inhalers had the highest net ingredient cost of any drug dispensed in England in 2015, at £376m for 7.8m items.

Community prescriptions in Scotland for 2014-15 – the figures

In comparison, NHS data for Scotland shows that the number of items dispensed grew by a more modest 1%.

• A total of 77.2m items were dispensed in the first nine months of the 2015-16 financial year, a 1.1% increase compared with the same period in 2014-15.
   
• The average cost per item increased from £10.01 to £10.76 during the same period, according to data published last month.

What drugs do you expect to drive prescription growth in the next few years?

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