Thank you for your request for information about the following:

1. Do you have data on the number of NHS (or licensed) prescriptions for testosterone medication for women over the past five years?
2. Do you have data on the number of private (or unlicensed) prescriptions for testosterone medication for women over the past five years?

This was then clarified on the 28th September with the below question:

Whether you mean all patients that identify as female or any specific age ranges for women? In this case, we mean women and trans men (ie. all those who were assigned female at birth) and no specific age ranges

To which you responded with: Yes if you can provide data across the time period for patients who are currently recorded as female in the NHSBSA data warehouse, and across all ages.
Your request was received on 7th August 2023 and has been dealt with under the terms of the Freedom of Information Act 2000.

Response

A copy of the information for NHS prescriptions is attached. The NHSBSA does not hold the requested information for private prescriptions. Please read the below notes to ensure a correct understanding of the data.

Number of unique female identified patients prescribed BNF chemical substances of testosterone – in BNF 060402 for calendar years 2018 to 2022.
NHSBSA: 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 one 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 unique female patients prescribed at least one item of testosterone in BNF 060402. BNF Chemical Substances:
Testosterone 0604020K0 Testosterone enantate BNF 0604020M0 Testosterone propionate BNF 0604020P0 Testosterone undecanoate BNF 0604020T0
Testosterone esters BNF 0604020U0

Time Period – calendar years 2018 to 2022
Organisation Data: The data is for prescriptions prescribed in England regardless of where dispensed in the community.

Gender:
Patient gender has been reported using the latest patient gender information held by the NHSBSA Information Services’ data warehouse at the time that the data was extracted. This uses information from either the most recent Electronic Prescription Service (EPS) message or from the last time that NHSBSA received data about the patient's gender from NHS Personal Demographics Service. 
Gender is either: Male, Female, Not Known (where no information is held) or Indeterminate (where information is held which does not confirm either Male or Female).

Patient Identification:
Where patient identifiable figures have been reported they are based on the information captured during the prescription processing activities. Please note, patient details cannot be captured from every prescription form and based on the criteria (testosterone patients) used for this analysis, patient information (age and NHS number) was only available for 97.82% of prescription items.

The unique patient count figures are based on a distinct count of NHS number as captured from the prescription image.

The figures for the number of identifiable patients should not be combined and reported at any other level than provided as this may result in the double-counting of patients. For example, a single patient could appear in the results for multiple presentations or calendar years.

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

https://opendata.nhsbsa.net/dataset/foi-01396

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:
“ePACT2, 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.