PATIENTS stockpiling and signing for unnecessary prescription drugs could be forcing up budget costs, health chiefs have warned.

Health chiefs fear they may slip £1m over budget unless there is a reduction in patients who are ticking all the boxes on repeat prescriptions, while others are stockpiling tablets unaware of the cost to the National Health Service.

Examples include a family who discovered 1,500 Digoxin heart tablets in the bathroom cupboard of an elderly relative who had died - enough medication to last five years.

"If his doctor had known he could have tackled the fact that the man had not wanted to take them," said Ian Morris, pharmaceutical advisor for Darlington Primary Care Trust, which manages 75 per cent of health care budgets in the borough.

Spending on prescribed drugs is rising at an alarming rate for a host of reasons.

Darlington PCT is one of the lowest spending authorities in the region but still has to find £13 million a year to provide drug cover for the borough's 100,000 residents and that figure is going up at the annual rate of 14 per cent, almost six times the rate of inflation. Highly sophisticated and expensive medication for heart attack victims and angina sufferers and new discoveries in how to treat heart conditions account for £1.4m alone.

The borough's population is also ageing thanks to improvements in medical science and drug technology. Darlington is home to 8,000 people over the age of 75 and four out of five are on prescribed drugs. The borough now also has more doctors and nurse practitioners giving better access to health care but widening the scope for prescribing.

Primary care trust chief executive Colin Morris said: "GPs are doing some very high quality prescribing in line with national guidelines. They are making robust improvements in people's lives and helping them live longer. But the consequence of this is we are spending a lot more money than allocated."

The chairman of the PCT's prescribing sub committee, GP David Russell, added: "Over 80 per cent of patients don't pay for their prescriptions. Even those who do pay contribute £6.20, yet the drugs could cost three times that much. I don't think people realise how much the drugs they take really cost."