Government of Jersey

Paracetamol costs and prescriptions (FOI)

Produced by the Freedom of Information office
Authored by States of Jersey and published on 25 August 2016.

Request

Please would you be able to tell me:

How much did the States spend on prescription paracetamol in 2015, 2014 and so far this year?

How many prescriptions were issued for the drug in 2015, 2014 and so far this year?

What price do the States pay for paracetamol per tablet?

Response

This request has been answered by the Health and Social Services Department and the Social Security Department.

A and B

The response is provided in the tables below.

The first table shows the quantity and cost of paracetamol dispensed by primary care, ie GP prescriptions dispensed at pharmacies.

The second table shows paracetamol used by the Health and Social Services Department, ie ward stock at the General Hospital and Overdale Hospital etc.

It is not possible to provide the number of prescriptions issued within the hospital as this information is not held.

Paracetamol is widely used for inpatients and is held as stock on wards and departments so only the total quantity used can be provided.

Table 1:

Paracetamol	2014	2015	2016 (Jan to June)
Number of Prescriptions	32,063	33,201	17,168
Drug costs	£129,564.00	£135,589.00	£70,667
Average cost per prescription	£4.04	£4.08	£4.12

Table 2:

Medicine	Pack size	Total number of packs issued January 2014 to December 2014	Total number of packs issued January 2015 to December 2015	Total number of packs issued January 2016 to July 2016
Paracetamol 500mg tablets	100	2,508	2,458	1,453
Paracetamol 500mg tablets	32	8,630	8,375	4,372
Paracetamol 500mg soluble tablets	24	560	389	259
Paracetamol 120mg in 5mL Liquid	100mL	87	100	79
Paracetamol 250mg in 5mL liquid	100mL	710	610	351
Paracetamol 250mg in 5mL liquid	500mL	1,505	1,724	720
Paracetamol Suppositories 60mg	10	5	4	3
Paracetamol Suppositories 120mg	10	29	34	17
Paracetamol Suppositories 240mg	10	13	24	9
Paracetamol Suppositories 500mg	10	55	42	27
Paracetamol Suppositories 1g	10	53	70	29
Paracetamol infusion 500mg in 50mL	10	20	21	7
Paracetamol Infusion 1g in 100mL	10	1,603	1,501	933
Total cost of all paracetamol preparations		£22,478	£22,393	£12,654

This data relates to all forms of paracetamol issued by the hospital and intravenous paracetamol accounts for over half of the hospital spend on paracetamol products.

The unit price of a tablet is commercially sensitive and is therefore exempt under Article 33 of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2012. However, the total overall cost of paracetamol has been provided in the tables above.

Community pharmacies are reimbursed at the same price as pharmacies in England and Wales, and this price varies from month to month. For a box of 100 paracetamol 500mg tablets, the reimbursement price in July 2016 was £2.31.

Exemptions and/or refusals applied to this request:

Article 33 Commercial interests

Information is qualified exempt information if:

(a) it constitutes a trade secret; or

(b) its disclosure would, or would be likely to, prejudice the commercial interests of a person (including the scheduled public authority holding the information).