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Written question asked by Lord Lansley (Conservative) on Wednesday, 14 January 2009, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Monday, 19 January 2009. It was answered by Phil Hope (Labour) on Tuesday, 27 January 2009 on behalf of the Department of Health.

Arthritis: Drugs

Question
To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many (a) anti-TNF medicines and (b) disease-modifying anti-rheumatic drugs have been (i) prescribed in hospital and (ii) dispensed in the community in each year since 2000-01.
Answer

Information on the number of prescriptions for anti-TNF medicines and disease-modifying anti-rheumatic medicines in hospitals is not available.Disease-modifying anti-rheumatic medicines, including anti-TNF medicines, are listed in the British National Formulary (BNF) ““chapter 10.1.3—Drugs that suppress the rheumatic disease process””. The following table shows the total number of prescription items dispensed in the community in England for this category and for anti-TNF medicines.

Prescription items of disease-modifying anti-rheumatic medicines dispensed in the community in England¹
Thousand
BNF chapter 10.1.3 including anti-TNF drugs Anti-TNF drugs² BNF chapter 10.1.3 excluding anti-TNF drugs
2000-01 2,222.6 0.1 2,222.5
2001-02 2,359.1 0.3 2,358.8
2002-03 2,489.4 0.5 2,488.9
2003-04 2,624.5 1.3 2,623.2
2004-05 2,759.0 2.7 2,756.3
2005-06 2,948.6 5.0 2,943.6
2006-07 3,119.4 5.1 3,114.3
2007-08 3,358.5 8.0 3,350.5
2008-09 (April-September) 1,783.5 5.3 1,778.2
¹ Medicines can be used to treat more than one condition and it is not possible to identify the different conditions that a medicine was prescribed for. Therefore, some of the items included in this table may not have been used to treat rheumatic disease.
² Adalimumab (Humira), etanercept (Enbrel) and infliximab (Remicade)
Source:
Prescription Cost Analysis system

Secondary information

Type
Written question
Reference
487 c398-9W; 249261
Session
2008-09
Subjects
Drugs Arthritis
Contains statistics
Yes
Link
View this Written question on www.publications.parliament.uk