Request

Under the Freedom of Information Act 2000, I was wondering if you would be able to develop on top of the FOI Request FOI 01097 & FOI 01206.

https://opendata.nhsbsa.net/dataset/foi-01097 (January 2023) https://opendata.nhsbsa.net/dataset/foi-01206 (January 2021 - March 2023)

The data in these requests were from the data source ‘NHSBSA Information Services Data Warehouse’ with the Columns YEAR_MONTH, PRACTICE_CODE, DISPENSER_CODE, BNF_CODE, PRODUCT_ORDER_NUMBER, PACK_ORDER_NUMBER and NIC_GBP.

The data is limited to prescribing within BNF Chapter 23 - Stoma Appliances, limited to England, Wales, Scotland, Guernsey, Alderney, Jersey, and the Isle of Man 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.

The caveats have been created to match the data on the English Prescribing Dataset (EPD).

Would it be possible to have the data in the same format for April 2023 and May 2023 please?

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

April 2023 and May 2023 inclusive

Drugs

Data is limited to prescribing within BNF Chapter 23 - Stoma Appliances Organisation

The data relates to items that have been prescribed in England and dispensed in England, Scotland, Wales, Isle of Man, Jersey and Guernsey. It does not include items that have been dispensed in England but prescribed in another country.

Prescribing is limited to GP Practices and Cost Centres in England

BNF CODE

The 11 characters at the beginning of a BNF code which specifies a Product (generic or branded) but not its strength or formulation.

PRODUCT_ORDER_NUMBER and PACK_ORDER_NUMBER:

If this is not held in our database then it will be blank.

NIC_GBP

The cost of the supplied item(s) calculated from the reimbursement price held on the NHSBSA master database. Given in Pounds Stirling.

ITEMS

The number of times a product appears on a prescription form.

Differences to the English Prescribing dataset

The caveats have been created to match the data on the English Prescribing Dataset (EPD), however the EPD gives unidentified doctors as “-“ whilst the NHSBSA Data Warehouse gives this under the Practice Code of 901600.

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

https://opendata.nhsbsa.net/dataset/foi-1322