Prescribing in mental illness: will short-term gains lead to long-term costs?

摘要

THE performance of many NHS staff is measured, in part at least, by the savings they can achieve on selected budgets, medicines expenditure included. Getting better value from the NHS is in everybody's interest because it is the public purse - our money - that is being spent. Specific prescribing strategies have been proposed across a variety of therapeutic areas to reduce costs. Some, if implemented, might be powerful in reducing expenditure on medicines in certain areas, but with respect to the treatment of mental illness, several can be contested and could in fact lead to increased long-term costs as well as prove detrimental to patient care.