Request

Please could I get the following data in an Excel spreadsheet

The monthly totals for number of identified patients prescribed HRT in England between July 2022 and March 2023.

The total number of identified patient prescribed HRT in 2022/2023.

The total number of identified patient prescribed HRT by age band in 2022/2023.

The total number of identified patient prescribed HRT by IMD quintile in 2022/2023.

The total number of identified patient prescribed HRT by IMD quintile and age in 2022/2023.

Total number of identified patients prescribed HRT by IMD quintile and presentation in 2022/2023.

You subsequently clarified your request with:

Could I please receive the data that you are able to provide at the present time.

By financial year please, so 2022/23 would be April 2022 to February 2023.

Response

A copy of the information is attached.

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

The data source was the NHSBSA Information Services Data Warehouse.

Exclusions

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

Financial year to date - April 2022 to February 2023, with a separate monthly breakdown for July 2022 to February 2023

Drugs

Limited to drugs prescribed in the following BNF Paragraphs: 060401 - female sex hormones and their modulators 070201 - preparations for vaginal and vulval changes
Please note that the BNF paragraph does not guarantee the clinical indication.

Organisation Data

Prescribing is limited to prescribing in England only, but no limits on dispensing.

Identified patients/patient counts

Patients have been counted only if their NHS number was captured during NHSBSA processing. The patient's NHS number may not be captured if, for example, it was not known at the time of writing the prescription, or it was hand-written on a paper prescription and the OCR scanners were unable to read it.

0.91% of all items prescribed in this data set were unable to be attributed to an NHS number.

Note that patients may be counted across multiple time periods, IMD quintiles, age bands or drug presentations. Therefore patient counts should not be aggregated or presented in any format other than that shown in this data.

Age Band

Patients have been grouped into 10-year age bands 0-9, 10-19, 20-29, 30-39, 40-49, 50-59, 60-69, 70-79, 80-89 and 90+. If the age of a patient was not collected during processing, then the age is recorded as UNKNOWN. Note that a patient may occur in more than one age band if their age changes during the time period, for example a 69 year old who turns 70 between April 22 and February 23, and who collects prescriptions at both ages, will appear in the unique patient count for 60-69 and 70-79. Therefore patient counts should not be aggregated or presented in any format other than that shown in this data

Index of Multiple Deprivation (IMD) IMD Quintile

IMD quintile is based on the patient's home address Lower Super Output Area (LSOA), where it is known, at the time of prescribing. This is limited to Electronic Prescribing. For paper prescribing, the last known LSOA from a patient's EPS prescribing is used. If a patient has only paper prescribing then the LSOA is UNKNOWN. The LSOA is matched to an IMD Quintile using ONS data, with IMD Quintile 1 being most deprived and IMD Quintile 5 being least deprived. Where the LSOA of a patient is not known, the IMD quintile is listed as 0 representing UNKNOWN. Note that a patient may appear in more than one IMD quintile if their LSOA changes during the time period, for example because they move house. Therefore it is not possible to add patient counts across multiple IMD quintiles, and the patient counts should not be aggregated or presented in any format other than that shown in this data