India’s national list of essential medicines (NLEM) plays a major role in ensuring access and affordability in India. It serves as a guide for the procurement of medicines that are available free of cost in public health facilities . However, the potential of the NLEM is often not realised due to the stockouts reported in public health facilities and loopholes in the Drugs Prices Control Order (DPCO). Moreover, many new and efficacious medicines are missing in the list.
A regularly updated NLEM will directly benefit patients across India. First, and most important, as the medicines on the NLEM are subject to price control through the National Pharmaceuticals Pricing Authority, they are accessible to households that cannot afford the market rates. Second, when doctors prescribe from an evidence-based essential medicines list, patients receive treatments that are proven to work, reducing needless drug use. Third, as a guiding document for the procurement and supply of medicines in the public sector, the NLEM is a lifeline for rural communities and the urban poor who are dependent on public health facilities.
The NLEM mandates that listed medicines must be stocked at all levels of the public health system, including the basic primary health centres that serve rural populations.
