ALLOWING GPs to prescribe ADHD medication in what has long been touted as a solution to lengthy hospital pharmacy queues and years-long waits for assessments could cost over £800,000 per year, a Scrutiny Panel has heard.
The Health and Social Services Scrutiny Panel met Social Security Minister Lyndsay Feltham and her team this week to discuss how access to ADHD treatment could be improved.
The hearing comes after the panel led a review into the way that ADHD medication is prescribed to adults, which was prompted by concerns about limited staffing and increased demand putting the current system under strain.
In August, it emerged that nearly 1,000 Islanders were awaiting assessment, including 778 adults and 140 young people moving from Children’s Services.
At the time, mental health director Andy Weir acknowledged that the “core issue” was a lack of capacity, with only one consultant psychiatrist able to diagnose and prescribe ADHD medication to hundreds of adult patients due to the fact only clinicians are able to prescribe the medication.
One solution to the backlog of cases that was discussed during the hearing was allowing GPs to handle routine prescribing after a patient has been initially assessed and diagnosed by the specialist.
This approach, used in Guernsey and common in other jurisdictions, is known as “shared prescribing”.
As well as freeing up the specialist’s time to focus on assessing new people, this model would also allow patients to collect their medication from doctors practices around the Island.
And it would reduce reliance on the hospital pharmacy, which closes on weekends and is often overwhelmed due to its limited opening hours.
However, senior pharmacist Paul McManus highlighted that allowing other medical professionals to prescribe ADHD medication would cost over £800,000 annually.
This “substantial chunk of money”, he explained, would cover prescriptions for around 1,500 patients and is more than the government currently spends on antibiotics and other infection treatments.
This money would come from the Health Insurance Fund, set up to support the costs of GP visits, which has an annual budget of £17 million.
The change would involve adding ADHD treatments to a “white list” of medications that are available to patients at no charge through the Health Insurance Fund.
Any change in prescribing, however, requires approval from the Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee and later Social Security Minister, as well as approval from GPs.
