TY - JOUR T1 - Prescribing of low-priority treatments JF - Drug and Therapeutics Bulletin JO - Drug Ther Bull SP - 7 LP - 7 DO - 10.1136/dtb.2018.000054 VL - 57 IS - 1 A2 - , Y1 - 2019/01/01 UR - http://dtb.bmj.com/content/57/1/7.abstract N2 - Review of: Walker AJ et al. Trends and variation in prescribing of low-priority treatments identified by NHS England: a cross-sectional study and interactive data tool in English primary care. J Royal Soc Med 2018;111:203–13.Key learning pointsNHS England spent £153.5 million on 5.8 million low-priority items in primary care in 2016–2017 and £149.0 million on 6.8 low-priority items in 2015–2016.The increase in expenditure was driven by the rising costs of some drugs, which undermined cost-saving efforts.Variation in prescribing of low-priority items reflected practice demographics but also variation in Clinical Commissioning Group policies.The greatest increase in cost was for co-proxamol, liothyronine and trimipramine.This retrospective cohort study used National Health Service (NHS) Digital data on the quantity and cost of prescribing from 7489 … ER -