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, FOI 01322 & FOI 01506.

https://opendata.nhsbsa.net/dataset/foi-01097 (January 2023) https://opendata.nhsbsa.net/dataset/foi-01206 (January 2021 - March 2023) https://opendata.nhsbsa.net/dataset/foi-01322 (April 2023 - May 2023) https://opendata.nhsbsa.net/dataset/foi-01506 (June 2023 - August 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 September 2023 to the latest possible month please?

Response

September 2023

Under Section 21 of the Act, we are not required to provide information in response to a request if it is already reasonably accessible to you. Some of the information you requested is available via the Open Data Portal on the following links:

Data from April 2023 up to September 2023 was released in the FOI-01537 https://opendata.nhsbsa.net/dataset/foi-01537

October and November 2023

A copy of the data is attached. To access it please see the below:

Accessing CSVs with more than 1 million rows CSVs with more than 1 million rows can be viewed using add-ons to existing software, such as the Microsoft PowerPivot add-on for Excel, to handle larger data sets. The Microsoft PowerPivot add-on for Excel is available using the link in the 'Related Links' section below.

Once PowerPivot has been installed, to load the large files, please follow the instructions below. Note that it may take at least 20 to 30 minutes to load one monthly file.

1. Start Excel as normal
2. Click on the PowerPivot tab
3. Click on the PowerPivot Window icon (top left)
4. In the PowerPivot Window, click on the "From Other Sources" icon
5. In the Table Import Wizard e.g. scroll to the bottom and select Text File
6. Browse to the file you want to open and choose the file extension you require e.g. CSV

Once the data has been imported you can view it in a spreadsheet

HS 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.

Please note drugs flagged in our database as Schedule 2 and 3 controlled drugs have been excluded from this dataset for information security reasons to prevent the identification of organisations with high levels of controlled drug dispensing.

Time Period

October 2023 to November 2023. This will need to be filtered to the requested time period.

Organisation

For data for this request FOI01681 (a rerun of FOI01505) for items prescribed in England in GP Practices/Cost Centres and dispensed in England, Scotland, Wales, Isle of Man, Jersey and Guernsey for BNF chapter 20-21 filter the column EPD_BNF_20_21_22 to where it says "EPD_BNF_20_21_22".

This matches the criteria for the previous request FOI01505, where we were asked to replicate the English Prescribing Data (EPD) for prescribing and dispensing organisations. For September data see FOI01537.

For data for items prescribed in England in GP Practices/Cost Centres and dispensed in England, Scotland, Wales, Isle of Man, Jersey and Guernsey for BNF chapter 23 filter the column EPD_BNF_23 to where it says "EPD_BNF_23".

This matches the criteria for the previous request FOI01506, where we were asked to replicate the English Prescribing Data (EPD) for prescribing and dispensing organisations. For September data see FOI01537.

For items prescribed in England (no restrictions on practice type or dispenser) for products in the BNF chapters 20-23 filter the column ENG_PRESC_BNF20_23 to where it says "ENG_PRESC_BNF20_23".

For data for items dispensed in Appliance contractors filter the column AC_FLAG to where it says "AC".

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.

Items

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

NIC_GBP

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

TOTAL_QUANTITY

Total quantity is the number of items multiplied by the quantity prescribed. e.g. 2 items prescribed, one with a quantity of 2 and one with a quantity of 3, the total quantity would show as 5 (1 item x quantity of 2) + (1 item x quantity of 3)

If you have any queries regarding the data provided, or if you plan on publishing the data, please contact foirequests@nhsbsa.nhs.ukmailto: 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.