Current status: Answered by Neil Gray on 18 September 2024
To ask the Scottish Government what the cost to the NHS was of dispensing methadone in the last year, broken down by NHS board.
The total drug costs and fees for dispensing methadone mixture and solution (1mg/ml) to the NHS in the last year (July 2023 – June 2024), broken down by NHS Board, are presented in the following table. Cost data are complete for all NHS Boards, whereas fees are incomplete as some payment elements are handled locally.
Table 1: Total drug costs and fees for dispensing methadone mixture1. Items dispensed in Scotland by NHS Board – July 2023 to June 2024
Dispensing NHS Health Board | Gross Ingredient Cost (£)2 | Methadone fees (£)3 | Supervision fees (£)4 |
NHS Ayrshire & Arran | 312,950.58 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
NHS Borders | 37,704.72 | 32,628.75 | 96,265.10 |
NHS Dumfries & Galloway | 66,962.59 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
NHS Fife | 268,639.30 | 287,487.51 | 441,648.50 |
NHS Forth Valley | 119,753.97 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
NHS Grampian | 401,156.44 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
NHS Greater Glasgow & Clyde | 1,246,624.40 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
NHS Highland | 93,103.97 | 27,367.50 | 25,096.95 |
NHS Lanarkshire | 286,939.79 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
NHS Lothian | 677,684.47 | 1,023,985.60 | 840,335.04 |
NHS Orkney | 2,784.09 | 2,855.25 | 5,089.54 |
NHS Shetland | 13,328.25 | 17,274.85 | 28,613.20 |
NHS Tayside | 317,234.79 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
NHS Western Isles | 4.01 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
NHS Scotland | 3,844,871.37 | 1,391,599.46 | 1,437,048.33 |
Notes:
1.Data relate to methadone mixture and solution (1mg/ml), which are recognised as being the standard products for methadone programmes. Data cover Opioid Substitution Therapy (OST) methadone dispensing only and do not include the dispensing of other OST medicines;
2.Total drug cost is the paid Gross Ingredient Cost (GIC);
3.Methadone fees (cost applied to dispensing methadone), (data are incomplete as some NHS Boards may pay elements of methadone dispensing locally and where this is the case, no central data will be held);
4.Fees paid for the supervision of methadone (data are incomplete as some NHS Boards may pay elements of methadone supervision locally and where this is the case, no central data will be held);
Source: Public Health Scotland (IR2024-00639)