Request

I want to request Information under the Freedom of Information Act, regarding the prescription rates of antidepressants across Care Homes in England over the past five calendar years.

Specifically, I am requesting the following information for each Care Home in England:

• The number of patients prescribed antidepressants in each of the calendar years 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023 and 2024

• The total number of patients at each home in each of those years

• The Care Quality Commission location ID for each of the homes 

Please provide the information in a data file, preferably in CSV format. If my request is too broad or unclear, I would appreciate your guidance on how to refine it.

Response

I am writing to advise you that following a search of our paper and electronic records, I have established that the information you requested is not held by the NHSBSA.

Advice and assistance

We do not collect or process information that identifies prescriptions or patients at any specific care home.

Some high-level analysis relating to estimated national prescribing to care home patients aged 65 years and over, including antidepressants, is publicly available at:

Estimated prescribing patterns for care home patients aged 65 years and over

https://nhsbsa-data-analytics.shinyapps.io/estimated-prescribing-patterns-for-care-home-patients/

This publication provides aggregated national insights but does not contain data broken down by individual care home or CQC location.