Thank you for your request for information about the following:

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 April 2022 and 28 February 2023, inclusive. Please may this information be provided as the following antibacterial drug items (related BNF codes) and the corresponding number of items that were dispensed each month (presented as monthly totals at drug level). Phenoxymethylpenicillin (0501011P0) Amoxicillin (0501013B0) Co-amoxiclav (0501013K0) Cefalexin (0501021L0) Cefradine (0501021M0) Doxycycline hyclate (0501030I0) Oxytetracycline (0501030T0) Tetracycline (0501030V0) Doxycycline monohydrate (0501030Z0) Azithromycin (0501050A0) Clarithromycin (0501050B0) Erythromycin (0501050C0) Erythromycin ethylsuccinate (0501050H0) Erythromycin stearate (0501050N0) Clindamycin hydrochloride (0501060D0) Metronidazole (0501110C0).

Your request was received on 30th April and has been dealt with under the terms of the Freedom of Information Act 2000.   

Response

A copy of the information is attached. 

Items in BNF 0501 prescribed by dentists and dispensed in the community in England

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.

This dataset shows the number of items at drug presentation level for the requested BNF chemical substances in BNF Section 0501 Antibacterial drugs.

Time Period: April 2022- February 2023 monthly  Organisation Data: The data is at national level and is for all English dental prescribing that has been dispensed in the community in England. Items: shows the number of times a product appears on a prescription form not the quantity prescribed.

Please note that this request and our response is published on our Freedom of Information disclosure log at:

https://opendata.nhsbsa.net/dataset/foi-01142

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.

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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/ 

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