Anaesthetic drugs & techniques
Economic impact of switching to licensed ready-to-administer injectable anaesthetic and critical care medicines in the National Health Service: a model-based evaluation of prefilled syringes
Authors' conclusion
Licensed ready-to-administer injectable medicines can provide safety and workflow advantages and be associated with economic benefit.
Study context
- Population
- Selected anaesthetic and critical care medicines in NHS practice (England)eight medicines
- Comparison
- Prefilled syringes vs Current mixed-use practice
- Outcome
- Overall system costs (acquisition, wastage, nursing preparation time, consumables, preventable adverse drug events)
- Follow-up
- Annually
Methodological detailsmodel-based, deterministic sensitivity analyses, Preparation time reductions interpreted as capacity release rather than workflow substitution
- Model-based
- Deterministic sensitivity analyses
- Preparation time reductions interpreted as capacity release rather than workflow substitution
Main finding
As reported in the abstract
Overall system costs
Epinephrine, ephedrine, atropine and lidocaine 2%: reduced overall system costs, largely from reduced wastage, preparation workload and modelled adverse drug events
more than £5.3 million annually
Further findings
Deterministic sensitivity analyses
- Did not alter the direction of findings
- Substantial price reductions required for certain medicines to achieve cost neutrality
Original publication
Economic impact of switching to licensed ready-to-administer injectable anaesthetic and critical care medicines in the National Health Service: a model-based evaluation of prefilled syringes. Br J Anaesth. Published 24 July 2026. doi:10.
Composed by AI from the published abstract and checked against it. How Briefs are made →