The impact of the 'Better Care Better Value' prescribing policy on the utilisation of angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors and angiotensin receptor blockers for treating hypertension in the UK primary care setting: longitudinal quasi-experimental design

In April/2009, the UK National Health Service initiated four Better Care Better Value (BCBV) prescribing indicators, one of which encouraged the prescribing of cheaper angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors (ACEIs) instead of expensive angiotensin receptor blockers (ARBs), with 80 % ACEIs/20 % ARBs as a proposed, and achievable target. The policy was intended to save costs without affecting patient outcomes. However, little is known about the actual impact of the BCBV indicator on ACEIs/ARBs utilisation and cost-savings. Therefore, this study aimed to evaluate the impact of BCBV policy on ACEIs/ARBs utilisation and cost-savings, including exploration of regional variations of the policy's impact. This cross-sectional study used data from the UK Clinical Practice Research Datalink. Segmented time-series analysis was applied to monthly ACEIs prescription proportion, adjusted number of ACEIs/ARBs prescriptions and costs. Overall, the proportion of ACEIs prescription decreased during the study period from 71.2% in April/2006 to 70.7% in March/2012, with a small but a statistically significant pre-policy reduction in its monthly trend of 0.02% (p