PRIMARY Care Trusts in East Lancashire are among the top in Britain for prescribing anti-dementia drugs.

The availability of such drugs has sparked a postcode prescription debate with some areas spending four times as much as others.

But new figures show Cumbria and Lancashire Strategic Health Authority is among the best in Britain.

Nationally £3.60 was spent per head of people over 65 last year but in Lancashire and Cumbria the figure was £5.60.

In January 2001 the National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE) issued guidelines on the availability of drugs.

Michelle Guinness, spokesman for the Cumbria and Lancashire Strategic Health Authority, said although the SHA could not enforce NICE guidelines, local doctors were adhering to them.

She said: "Prescribing has always been the prerogative of individual doctors and the PCT has to foot the bill.

"It is not a role we would necessarily get involved with but we would certainly support the implementation of NICE guidelines.

"In January 2001 they instructed us that all patients who were at a certain stage of dementia should be given one of the dementia drugs. We are delighted to see that doctors and PCTs have the confidence to prescribe these drugs.

"It is always good to know that across the area we are observing the NICE guidelines and it is important to end the postcode lottery. We have a large number of elderly people in the area and dementia is very distressing. Anything that can be taken to delay its progress must be done."

The information was revealed as part of a study into money being spent in the 52 strategic health authorities and boards across the UK on the three main anti-Alzheimer drugs.

It compared the spending in 1999 with that of the 12 months prior to February 2003.

At the extremes, the Eastern Health and Social Services Board, Northern Ireland, spends the equivalent of £10 per head of over 65s on dementia drugs. In Lothian in Scotland it is less than £1.