NHS Urged to Limit Viagra Prescription to Two Pills Per Month

A panel of NHS managers in England has said that it will be recommending GPs to limit prescribing erectile dysfunction pills such as Viagra to just two pills every month.

The South Central Priorities Committee is responsible for making drug and prescription recommendations for health trusts in Milton Keynes, Oxfordshire, Berkshire East, Berkshire West and Buckinghamshire. The panel said that it recommends the GPs to limit the prescription of erectile dysfunction drugs such as Viagra, Levitra and Cialis to just two pills per month.

The panel said that its recommendation was based on "evidence of clinical and cost-effectiveness, and the financial impact on the health economy of treatment for erectile dysfunction". The panel did acknowledge that it cannot prohibit the GPs from prescribing more than two pills a month.

The findings were published in the Pulse magazine with its editor, Richard Hoey saying that the recommendation clearly disregarded the emotional anguish of the patients. "Limiting patients to drugs like Viagra just twice a month is to treat sex like an unnecessary luxury, and completely fails to recognize the degree of anguish it can cause some men with erectile dysfunction", Hoey said.


Source: Medindia