About 569 Million Reasons
The NHS can spend as much as £569 million in a year prescribing medicines that can be bought from high street pharmacies, supermarkets and even petrol stations. These are called over the counter medicines and are generally used to treat minor and common illnesses and conditions.
By spending less money on treating conditions that will get better by themselves, or that are easily treated at home, we will have more money to spend on maintaining the services we have - and investing in new ones.