The NHS is spending millions of pounds a year on prescriptions for items that can be bought in high street pharmacies.

Household brands such as Vaseline, Rennie, Strepsils, Benadryl and Bazuka account for hundreds of thousands of prescriptions every year, NHS data shows.

The figures for England show multivitamins made up 1.33 million prescriptions in 2015 at a spend of more than £3.8 million.

One of the biggest spends was for antacids - mostly Rennie and Gaviscon - with more than four million prescriptions at just over £26 million.