Thank you for your request for information about the following:

Request

You asked us:

Could you please provide an update on the number of times that each named unlicensed cannabis based medicinal product (CBMP) was prescribed privately in 2025?

A CSV file in the same format as FOI-03276 would be enough. We understand the output will be a raw dataset.

The NHS Business Services Authority (NHSBSA) received your request on 23 February 2026.

We have handled your request under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) 2000.

Our response

I can confirm that the NHSBSA holds the information you have requested and a copy of the information is attached.

Please read the below notes to ensure correct understanding of the data.

Item count for unlicensed private cannabis prescribing, aggregated by product name, strength (THC and CBD), volume.

NHS Prescription Services process prescriptions for:
• pharmacy contractors
• appliance contractors
• dispensing doctors
• personal administration

Information is then used to make payments to pharmacists and appliance contractors in England for prescriptions dispensed in primary care settings. Other arrangements are in place for making payments to dispensing doctors and personal administration.

This involves processing over 1 billion prescription items and payments totalling over £9 billion each year. The data gathered from this process is used to provide information on costs and trends in prescribing in England and Wales to over 25,000 registered NHS and Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) users.

Data source and review process

When prescriptions are processed by NHSBSA data capture, prescriptions sometimes contain prescribing of medicines that were not populated on the NHSBSA drug database at the time. These medicines will be captured as an ‘unspecified drug’.

Data for prescribing of unlicensed cannabis-based medicines has been taken from data capture as unspecified prescribing. Unlicensed cannabis-based medicines are identified by an additional review process which occurs after the prescriptions have been processed.

The items identified by this additional review are reported against the date the prescription was written and not necessarily when the prescription was submitted. Therefore, these figures may be subject to change if prescriptions are submitted to the NHSBSA later months.

This dataset

This dataset shows a breakdown of private unlicensed cannabis items prescribed. This includes the number of items prescribed for each product, aggregated by the recorded strength and volume of each product.

The unlicensed cannabis data held by the NHSBSA is manually recorded from often handwritten prescriptions. This means there is no standardised naming convention for the product names, strength or volume listed within this data. This may lead to duplication of some product names, strength or volume depending on variations within how the data was prescribed and/or recorded.

In some cases, there is no strength or volume for the product prescribed within the data.

As this dataset is manually maintained, users are advised that there will be data quality issues and manual errors within the data.

With effect from May 2025, NHSBSA’s Prescriptions Services team began recording the THC and CBD content on prescriptions processed separately, as well as recording the presentation type for each unlicensed product.

For this reason, this data is presented in two parts:
• part 1 covering prescriptions recorded before the change in process
• part 2 covering prescriptions recorded after the change

Time Period
January to July 2025.

Please note that July 2025 is currently the most recent month of data available.

Organisation of the Data

Data for private unlicensed prescriptions is limited to prescriptions dispensed in England.

Items shows the number of times a product appears on a prescription form, not the quantity prescribed.

Data Queries

Please contact foirequests@nhsbsa.nhs.uk ensuring you quote the above reference if you have any specific questions regarding this response; or, if you feel you may be misunderstanding or misinterpreting the information; or, if you plan on publishing the data.

Reusing the data and copyright

If you plan on producing a press or broadcast story based upon the data please contact communicationsteam@nhsbsa.nhs.uk. This is important to ensure that the figures are not misunderstood or misrepresented.

The information supplied to you continues to be protected by the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 and is subject to NHSBSA copyright. This information is licenced under the terms of the Open Government Licence detailed at:

http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3/

Should you wish to re-use the information you must include the following statement: “MYS, NHSBSA Copyright 2026”. Failure to do so is a breach of the terms of the licence.

Information you receive which is not subject to NHSBSA Copyright continues to be protected by the copyright of the person, or organisation, from which the information originated. Please obtain their permission before reproducing any third party (non NHSBSA Copyright) information.