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From the pill to MMR: top 10 NHS medicines listed

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From the pill to MMR: top 10 NHS medicines listed

The contraceptive pill, beta blockers and the MMR vaccine are among the most important medicines to be introduced since the creation of the NHS, leading medicines experts say in a new report.

The report was conducted by the Office of Health Economics and was commissioned and funded by the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry. It looks at the “contribution and impact of medicines to the health economy in the UK throughout the 70-year history of the NHS”.

During this period, the authors say, the NHS oversaw “rapid growth in the use of medicines and improved public health” along with “associated improvements in economic growth and development”.

The authors interviewed eight individuals with “scientific, clinical, practicing, academic and regulatory experience in the context of new medicines in the UK”. From these interviews, a long list of 37 medicines and groups of medicines was identified; of these, 10 were deemed to have a particularly significant positive impact on the health service.

The authors write: “Some medicines were considered important because of their capacity to reduce preventable deaths, others because they improved patients’ quality of life, and The Impact of New Medicines in the NHS 19 others because of their impact on the NHS, the wider economy, or society. This highlights the importance of adopting a broad understanding of value and demonstrates the challenge of making comparisons of value between different medicines.

“The themes identified in our interviews highlight a variety of ways in which policy-makers can facilitate positive impact from new medicines. Improving public, patient, and clinician understanding of new medicines was identified as being of critical importance.”

 

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