Thank you for your request for information about the following:

Under the Freedom of Information Act 2000, I was wondering if you would be able to develop on top of the FOI Request FOI-01374. https://opendata.nhsbsa.net/dataset/foi-01374 (January 2021-May 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.

Would it be possible for the data to be limited to prescribing within BNF Chapter 20 - Dressings, Chapter 21 – Appliances and Chapter 22 – Incontinence 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.

Could we have the same caveats so that the data matches with the English Prescribing Dataset (EPD). Would it be possible to have the data in the same format for June 2023 to the latest possible month please?

Your request was received on 20 October 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.

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

June 2023 to August 2023 inclusive

Drugs

Data is limited to prescribing within BNF Chapters 20 - 22

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.

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 Information Services Data Warehouse, 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.