Thank you for your request for information about the following:

‘This is an FOI request under the 2000 Freedom of Information Act. Please tell me:

1) How many community pharmacies in England have signed up to provide the NHS Pharmacy Contraception Service between 24 April, when sign-up for the service opened, and today, January 26? Please provide a full list of pharmacies that have signed up including their name and location.

2) What proportion of pharmacies in England does this equate to?

3) How many community pharmacies in England have signed up to provide the advanced NHS Pharmacy Contraception Service between December 1, when sign-up for the service opened, and today, January 26? Please provide a full list of pharmacies that have signed up including their name and location.

4) What proportion of pharmacies in England does this equate to?’

[On 2 February 2024 we sent you the following clarification request]

‘Can you please confirm whether you want to exclude any pharmacies that have registered and then subsequently deregistered from the service, as well as any pharmacies that have registered and since closed down?

For questions 2 and 4, can you please confirm it is acceptable for us to provide a count of all open pharmacies as of 26 January 2024, rather than a total across the entire period or at any other point within the reporting period?’

[On 7 February 2024 you clarified your request as follows]

‘Yes please exclude these from the main count, and provide them as separate numbers.

Yes that is acceptable’

Your request was received on 26 January 2024, with clarification received on 7 February 2024, and has been dealt with under the terms of the Freedom of Information Act 2000.

Response

A copy of the information is attached.

Data Source

NHSBSA Information Services Data Warehouse

NHSBSA Prescription Services process prescriptions and information is then used to make payments to pharmacists and appliance contractors (in England) for prescriptions dispensed in primary care settings. This involves processing approximately 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 users.

Time Period

Data covers two periods, for pharmacies signing up to the NHS Pharmacy Contraception Service between April 24th 2023 and January 26th 2024 (reported in questions 1 and 2), and between 1 December 2023 and January 26th 2024 (reported in questions 3 and 4).

Contents:

The data shows -

• the number of pharmacies that have registered with the Service in each of the periods outlined above

• the percentage of the pharmacies signing up in each period, based on the total number of active pharmacies as of January 26th 2024

• lists of those pharmacies that have registered, relating to each time period

The data shows the total number of registrations to the Service, from the point of launch in April 2023 and, separately, the point at which the scope of the Service was extended on December 1st 2023. In each dataset, pharmacies that have registered and subsequently deregistered (and not since re-registered), and pharmacies that have registered and then closed, are not included in the pharmacy counts or lists, or the numerator for the percentage calculations. Pharmacies that have closed, and private accounts are not included in the percentage calculation denominators in these totals.

The number of pharmacies that have registered and since deregistered, and those that have registered and subsequently closed, are included separately in the 'Figures' worksheet, with details shown in the 'Additional Question Pharm List' worksheet.

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.