Thank you for your request for information about the following:

Please can you provide details of the proportion of prescription charges withheld (Wrong Movements) for Dispensing Practices since October 2021, compared the equivalent period (say 18 months) prior to the pandemic.

Your request was received on 21 July 2023 and has been dealt with under the terms of the Freedom of Information Act 2000.

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.

Organisation

The data is limited to prescriptions dispensed by dispensing doctors in England.

Time period

Monthly data for two requested periods from 2018-09 to 2020-02 and from 2021-10 to 2023-05.

Switch Status indicates whether a form was switched or not

Charge status indicates whether a form was chargeable or not. Where switched the charge status is the new charge status.

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

Charge status and switch status are held at prescription form level and this analysis was done at this level. Please note the data includes some items such as contraceptives which may be on a chargeable form, but are exempt from charges. In these cases the NHSBSA applies a charge of £0 to the item.

Data Queries

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 communicationsteam@nhsbsa.nhs.uk 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 2023” 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.