Prescribing of lipid regulating drugs and admissions for myocardial infarction in England

Dr Foster's case notesPrescribing of lipid regulating drugs and admissions for myocardial infarction in England We examined NHS primary care prescribing and hospital admissions data for acute myocardial infarction in England from 1996-7 to 2002-3.The national prescribing data came from the Department of Health, which collates information on all prescriptions dispensed in the community.The number of prescribed items for primary care trusts came from the PACT system, which collates information on prescriptions issued by general practitioners.w5 Data on admissions came from the hospital episode statistics system.To avoid double counting of diagnoses, we used admissions rather than consultant episodes as the numerator in the calculation of annual standardised admission ratios.We found that prescriptions of lipid regulating drugs (largely statins) increased from 3.1m to 17.6m items during 1996-2002, a total cost to the NHS of £571m in 2002 compared with £93m in 1996.The standardised admission ratio for acute myocardial infarction fell from the baseline of 100.0 in 1996-7 to 90.7 in 2001-2 before increasing to 95.8 in 2002-3 (fig 1).Primary care trusts showed a fourfold variation in prescribing of lipid regulating agents in 2002, from 180 to 730 items per