LOCAL GPs are under pressure to contribute to health savings by curbing spending on prescriptions and cutting patient referrals to hospital.

A health trust warns that money is being wasted through doctors prescribing patients top-of-the-range drugs from leading companies.

And with the local health health service faced with a £1.3m overspend on prescriptions, GPs are being urged to look at cheaper options.

The Oxford Primary Care Trust has also revealed that it has begun targeting the biggest overspending GP practices, to help them change their costly drug prescribing habits.

The county's primary care trusts, which will merge at the end of the month as part of a major reorganisation, must save £18m by next March.

A report to boards of the soon-to-be-disbanded PCT sets out areas of overspending still causing concern.

The report says: "Prescribing is overspent by £1.3m against target, although the overspending trend has reduced considerably in the last month.

"We have earmarked more than £3m of savings. Key to our success is changing prescribing habits to use more cost-effective generics over branded preparations."

It goes on to say that the costs of one drug looked at varied from £40 to £15. "We have already started using this information to target those practices which are spending most on prescribing and agreeing specific action plans to reduce spend. "

A spokesman for the Oxfordshire PCTs said: "This is not about preventing GPs from prescribing drugs appropriately. It is about them being aware of the cost differences between branded and non-branded drugs."

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