Thank you for your request for information about the following:

Please provide the following information:

1. The number of patients on repeat prescriptions

2. The total number of pills prescribed

3. The most up-to-date prices per pill

For each of the following medications:

• 500mg paracetamol

• 200mg ibuprofen

• 75mg aspirin

• 300mg aspirin

Your request was received on 20th April 2023 and has been dealt with under the terms of the Freedom of Information Act 2000.

Response

NHS Prescription Services process prescriptions for Pharmacy Contractors, Appliance Contractors, Dispensing Doctors and Personal Administration. This 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 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

2022 calendar year.

Prescribing Organisations

Limited to prescribing in England.

Dispensing Organisations

No limits on dispensing.

Drug List

All tablets and capsules linked to products containing the requested drugs and strengths have been included, including combination products. The full list of drugs is:

Paracetamol 500mg / Caffeine 65mg effervescent tablets sugar free
Paracetamol 500mg / Caffeine 65mg tablets
Paracetamol 500mg / Dihydrocodeine 20mg tablets
Paracetamol 500mg / Dihydrocodeine 30mg tablets
Paracetamol 500mg / Dihydrocodeine 7.46mg effervescent tablets sugar free
Paracetamol 500mg / Dihydrocodeine 7.46mg tablets
Paracetamol 500mg / Diphenhydramine 25mg tablets
Paracetamol 500mg / Domperidone 10mg tablets
Paracetamol 500mg / Ibuprofen 150mg tablets
Paracetamol 500mg / Ibuprofen 200mg tablets
Paracetamol 500mg / Metoclopramide 5mg tablets
Paracetamol 500mg / Phenylephrine 12.18mg capsules
Paracetamol 500mg / Phenylephrine 6.1mg capsules
Paracetamol 500mg / Phenylephrine 6.1mg tablets
Paracetamol 500mg / Pseudoephedrine hydrochloride 30mg tablets
Paracetamol 500mg / Pseudoephedrine hydrochloride 60mg tablets
Paracetamol 500mg capsules
Paracetamol 500mg effervescent tablets
Paracetamol 500mg effervescent tablets sugar free
Paracetamol 500mg soluble tablets
Paracetamol 500mg tablets
Ibuprofen 200mg / Codeine 12.8mg tablets
Ibuprofen 200mg / Phenylephrine 5mg tablets
Ibuprofen 200mg / Phenylephrine 6.1mg tablets
Ibuprofen 200mg / Pseudoephedrine hydrochloride 30mg tablets
Ibuprofen 200mg capsules
Ibuprofen 200mg effervescent tablets
Ibuprofen 200mg modified-release capsules
Ibuprofen 200mg orodispersible tablets sugar free
Ibuprofen 200mg tablets
Ibuprofen lysine 200mg tablets
Ibuprofen sodium dihydrate 200mg tablets
Aspirin 75mg / Isosorbide mononitrate 60mg modified-release tablets
Aspirin 75mg dispersible tablets
Aspirin 75mg effervescent tablets
Aspirin 75mg gastro-resistant tablets
Aspirin 75mg tablets
Bisoprolol 10mg / Aspirin 75mg capsules
Bisoprolol 5mg / Aspirin 75mg capsules
Aspirin 300mg / Paracetamol 200mg dispersible tablets sugar free
Aspirin 300mg dispersible tablets
Aspirin 300mg effervescent tablets sugar free
Aspirin 300mg gastro-resistant tablets
Aspirin 300mg modified-release tablets
Aspirin 300mg orodispersible tablets sugar free
Aspirin 300mg tablets

Drugs have been broken down in the data by their presentation name, supplier and pack size. Up-to-date drug prices have not been included in the response to this request as they can be found on our website in the Dictionary of Medicines and Devices (dm+d) browser https://services.nhsbsa.nhs.uk/dmd-browser/search

Repeat Prescribing and Repeat Dispensing

Repeat Dispensing is captured for both EPS and Paper prescriptions. Repeat prescribing is captured for EPS messages, but this relies on accurate reporting from the practice or point of care systems. Therefore, this field is reported as stated on the message but is not validated. Repeat prescribing is not captured for paper prescriptions.

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. There was an identifiable patient NHS number associated with 99.39% of all prescription items in this data set.

Note that a patient may appear in more than one patient count, for example if they received both repeat prescribing and repeat dispensing, or if they have received more than one product in the data. Therefore, the patient counts must not be aggregated or displayed in any form other than that within this data set.

Items

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

Quantity

Quantity normally shows the quantity of a product prescribed. However, where a product is packed in a 'special container'(see Drug Tariff Part II Clause 10) the pharmacist is not required to split the pack and may supply the number of containers or original packs which provide the quantity nearest to that prescribed. In some circumstances these items show quantity as the number of units supplied i.e. 1 or 2 even though a pack may contain 56 tablets.

Net Ingredient Cost (NIC) GBP

Net Ingredient cost is the basic price of a drug as stated in Part II Clause 8 of the Drug Tariff but please note that where a price concession for items listed in Part VIIIA of the Drug Tariff has been agreed between the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) and the Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee the NIC will reflect the concession price rather than the Drug Tariff price.

If you have any queries regarding the data provided, or if you plan on publishing the data, please contact foidata@nhsbsa.nhs.uk ensuring you quote the above reference. This is important to ensure that the figures are not misunderstood or misrepresented.

If you plan on producing a press or broadcast story based upon the data, please contact nhsbsa.communicationsteam@nhs.net.. 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: This information is licenced under the terms of the Open Government Licence:

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

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.