A DOZEN GP practices in the York and Ryedale area are to manage their own prescribing budgets to help tackle a £44 million health service shortfall.

The Vale of York Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) says GPs and commissioners will collaborate to seek to identify ways of improving the quality of prescribing and reducing prescription “waste and inefficiency”.

It says funding needs to be prioritised to meet the most vulnerable patients’ needs.

Dr Shaun O’Connell, joint medical director and clinical lead for prescribing, said “prescribing indicative budgets” had been introduced to help groups of practices identify any potentially wasteful or cost-inefficient prescribing.

“In essence groups of GP practices have been given the prescribing budget, in an indicative form, to actively manage,” he said. “It is estimated that this will identify considerable savings which can be diverted to priority areas of health need.”

He said GP groups taking part in the work were asked to manage the prescribing budget in line with the York and Scarborough ‘formulary’ - a document listing medicines deemed suitable for prescribing within the area - and using cost-effective medicines.

He said any efficiency savings would be shared by the CCG and practices, with the former using them to reduce the deficit and the latter using them to reinvest back into primary care services.

A spokeswoman said indicative budgets basically meant they were devolved to practices while still belonging legally to the CCG.

The practices so far involved in the scheme are Clifton, Elvington, Front Street, Helmsley, Millfield, Old School, Petergate, Pickering, Stillington, Terrington, Tollerton and York Medical Group.

Dr Andrew Field, a local GP and chair of City and Vale GP Alliance Board, said it was "excited" about having an increased responsibility for prescribing budgets in order to ensure patients were receiving the most appropriate medication. He said patients would still receive the medications they required and the move was about improving the quality of prescribing and reducing any waste of precious NHS resources.

“Any savings we make from reducing prescribing inefficiencies will be reinvested into improving patient services.”