Examination of Witness

Part of Health Service Medical Supplies (Costs) Bill – in a Public Bill Committee at 10:30 am on 8 November 2016.

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David Watson:

The current PPRS is a five-year deal. This one has been very different from most previous deals, so it underwrites the growth in branded medicine spend with payments going back to the Department. The idea with those payments is that they are then apportioned to Scotland, to the health service in England, etc. So that mechanism has worked well. I think that the problem has been that, certainly in Scotland, as you know, it has gone into a specific purpose. In England, it has gone into general funding for the health service, and therefore it has not fundamentally achieved its purpose, which was to allow taking the cost question off the table, almost—being able to find the right use of medicines by essentially capping spend on them. Because that flow of money has not worked, I think that that part of its objective has not succeeded in England.