Request

Previous request FOI-03578 - Thank you for your response under FoI-03139. This request seeks the same information but for a more recent time interval. Please may I request the following information under Freedom of Information: the number of antibacterial drug items that were prescribed by NHS general dental practitioners and dispensed in the community in England between 1 June 2025 and 30 November 2025, inclusive. Please may this information be provided as the following antibacterial drug items and the corresponding number of items that were dispensed each month, presented as monthly totals at drug level: Phenoxymethylpenicillin, Amoxicillin, Co-amoxiclav, Cefalexin, Cefradine, Doxycycline, Oxytetracycline, Tetracycline, Azithromycin, Clarithromycin, Erythromycin, Clindamycin, and Metronidazole.

Many thanks for your message requesting clarification. Provided the antibiotic item counts remain coherent with the dental prescribing dashboard, I would only require monthly counts for Cefalexin, Cefradine, Doxycycline, Oxytetracycline, and Tetracycline.

New Request FOI-03643 –

As time has now rolled on, would it be possible please to extend the data collected by one month (i.e., until December 2025). I understand this should now be available. It will help avoid a further request if this information can be provided with the pending request.

On 2 March 2026 we asked the following:

We can include the additional month (December 2025) in the information you have requested. However, I wanted to make you aware of the two ways we can proceed so that you can choose the option that best suits your needs:

Option 1 – Add the new month to your existing request

We can extend the timeframe of your current FOI request to include December 2025.

Please note that if we do this, the statutory FOI timeframe will reset to day one. This means the full response—including all previously requested information—would be issued later than currently planned, as we would need to restart the process to include the additional data.

Option 2 – Treat this as a new, separate FOI request

If you would prefer not to delay the response to your current request, we can continue finalising that as planned.

We can then handle your request for December 2025 as a new FOI request, which will have its own statutory deadline and be processed independently.

On the 2 March 2026 you clarified the following:

Many thanks for your message. Please can we proceed with option 2 with a requested amendment from me to incorporate the latest data release available at the time the request is processed (...rather than December 2025). Depending on projected timeline this may allow figures from January 2026 to be included.

Response

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

Please note that data for January 2026 became available on 20 March 2026. As your request was received on 27 February 2026, this information was not yet held by the NHSBSA at that time and cannot be included in this response. Under the Freedom of Information Act, we are only required to provide information that is held at the date a request is received. If you require January 2026 data now that it has been released, you would need to submit a new FOI request.

The NHSBSA’s data release calendar, which shows planned publication dates, is available at https://www.nhsbsa.nhs.uk/data-release-calendar.

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

Dental antibacterial prescribing for the Chemical Substances Cefalexin, Cefradine, Doxycycline, Oxytetracycline and Tetracycline.

NHS Prescription Services process prescriptions for pharmacy contractors, appliance contractors, dispensing doctors and personal administration with information 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 information gathered from this process is then 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 users.

Data Source: ePACT2

Data in ePACT2 is sourced from the NHSBSA Data Warehouse and is derived from products prescribed on prescriptions and dispensed in the community. The data captured from prescription processing is used to calculate reimbursement and remuneration. It includes items prescribed in England, Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland, Guernsey / Alderney, Jersey, and Isle of Man which have been dispensed in the community in England. English prescribing that has been dispensed in Wales, Scotland, Guernsey / Alderney, Jersey, and Isle of Man is also included.

The data excludes:

• items not dispensed, disallowed and those returned to the contractor for further clarification.

• prescriptions prescribed and dispensed in prisons, hospitals and private prescriptions.

• items prescribed but not presented for dispensing or not submitted to NHS Prescription Services by the dispenser.

Time Period:

July 2025 – December 2025- data is aggregated monthly.

Organisation Data:

The data covers items prescribed in England by dentists.

Data:

The data covers the number of items prescribed monthly by dentists for antibacterial presentations of the chemical substances Cefalexin, Cefradine, Doxycycline, Oxytetracycline and Tetracycline.

BNF Code

The BNF Code is a 15-digit code in which the first seven digits are allocated according to the categories in the BNF and the last 8 digits represent the medicinal product, form, strength and the link to the generic equivalent product. NHS Prescription Services has created pseudo BNF chapters, which are not published, for items not included in BNF chapters 1 to 15. The majority of such items are dressings and appliances which NHS Prescription Services has classified into four pseudo BNF chapters (20 to 23).

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: “ePACT2, 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.