Computerised prescribing: assessing the impact on prescription repeats and on generic substitution of some commonly used antibiotics

In reply: We accept the evidence presented by Henderson and colleagues that the antibiotics examined in our study are not used exclusively for upper respiratory tract infections (URTIs), and we acknowledge in our article the lack of information on indication for treatment. However, data from the Bettering the Evaluation and Care of Health (BEACH) program have been used by others to suggest that the four antibiotics represent over 60% of the prescribed antibiotics for URTIs.1 Our study does not assess the appropriateness of the antibiotic choices, focusing instead on duration of therapy as implied by the issuing of repeat prescriptions.