Practices have been urged not to display posters telling patients they may have to buy common medicines – rather than getting prescriptions.

The posters are part of an economy drive in some clinical commissioning groups.

One clinical commissioning group has issued practices with posters telling patients they may not be prescribed common medicines.

A second CCG has issued its own guidelines for the prescription of statins – contradicting national guidance, the British Medical Association has revealed.

But a senior GP said doctors should always prescribe a drug they believed to be “clinically appropriate.”

The poster has been issued in Bristol and tells patients that medicines such as pain-killers, laxatives and anti-histamines would only be prescribed “in exceptional circumstances.”

But Dr Andrew Green, who heads a GP prescribing committee for the BMA, said practices should not display the poster.

He said: “Any GP refusing to prescribe a drug that they had decided was clinically indicated would be in breach of their contractual duties, and might even face action from the GMC for failing to treat properly.

“I would not advise any practice to display such a poster — all patients need individual consideration and prescribing if appropriate.”

In Stockport, the BMA reports, the CCG has advised GPs to prescribe statins to patients with a 20% risk of developing cardiovascular disease. The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence has said the threshold for prescription should be a risk of 10%.