Allowing chemists to prescribe drugs based upon a doctor's diagnosis could save the NHS billions of pounds a year, a think tank claimed on Friday.

According to the Adam Smith Institute's Matthew Young, billions of pounds could be saved by letting pharmacists decide what drug should be prescribed to treat illnesses identified by doctors.

Chemists should also be responsible for following up the treatment and advising patients on how to take the drugs properly, says Young.

Writing in the "Pharmaceutical Journal" he says the current system of GP prescriptions suffers from "feeble management" resulting in over half of the £7 billion drugs budget being wasted.

"No one is looking after the patient in terms of choosing the best medicine, adjusting it to the right dose, and measuring whether it works," he said. "So patients get the wrong prescription, at the wrong dose, and end up throwing away the rest."

Young is calling on the government to relocate pharmacists from shops into frontline primary care to work alongside GPs. "They must be actively involved with the patient and placed in charge of the prescribing process and medicines management," he said.