Thank you for your request for information about the following:

‘I would like to submit an FoI request for the total NHS England spend (and number of products) on Unlicensed Prescription Medicines imported into the UK on a special licence basis in the latest FY 2022/23.

Your request was clarified as follows:

I now understand the data will only correspond to “Community” use of Specials and that you do not have data on origins of products(ie UK or import). Below I have now outlined more specifically my FOI request to the NHSBSA for information on the following:

1 - Full list of all drug Specials(excluding appliances) provided in FT2022/23

2 - Net Ingredient Cost of each item on the drug Specials list

3 - Associated source information for each item from the Drug Tariff Parts VIIIB & IIID

This was clarified again when you confirmed ‘yes’ to the following:

1 - Can you clarify that “provided” means presentations prescribed in England and dispensed in the community.

2 - We can provide the Items and Net Ingredient Cost of each products at BNF presentation level for the categories Special Order Products, Part VIIIB Drug Tariff Special Order Products and Part VIIID Drug Tariff Special Order Products.

3 - We can only provide the supplier of the BNF presentation categorised as dispensed by Special Order Products, Part VIIIB Drug Tariff Special Order Products and Part VIIID Drug Tariff Special Order Products not the actual source of the information.

Please note that as its annual data 2022/23 we can only provide this if the March 2023 is available to us in ePACT2. The data will be based on the Special Order Products, Part VIIIB Drug Tariff Special Order Products and Part VIIID Drug Tariff Special Order Products on the month of prescription processing and is therefore subject to change over an annual time period.

Your clarified request was received on 3 May 2023, with further clarification received on 3 May 2023, and has been dealt with under the terms of the Freedom of Information Act 2000.

Response

A copy of the information is attached.

Prescribing of Special Order Products, Part VIIIB Drug Tariff Special Order Products and Part VIIID Drug Tariff Special Order Products in England 2022/23

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.

BNF Presentation

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).

Supplier Name

The name used to describe the supplier of the prescribed BNF presentation as held on our drug database. We do not hold suppliers of specials on our drug database and therefore they are held under the supplier names of:

Special Order Drug Tariff Special Order (which relates to those in Part VIIIB of the Drug Tariff) Part VIIID Drug Tariff Special Order

Items

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

Net Ingredient cost

Net Ingredient cost (NIC) 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 VIII 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 nhsbsa.foirequests@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: “NHSBSA Copyright 2022” 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.