Request

Under freedom of information legislation I would be grateful if you could respond to the following questions concerning the community pharmacy independent prescribing pathfinder programme:

1. How many Pathfinder sites were registered with NHSBA in January 2024, February 2024 and to date?
2. How many Pathfinder sites have been registered with NHSA by ICB area in January 2024, February 2024 and to date?
3. How much have community pharmacy contractors have claimed for participating in the community pharmacy independent prescribing pathfinder programme in January 2024, February 2024 and to date?
4. How much have community pharmacy contractors have claimed by ICB area for participating in the community pharmacy independent prescribing pathfinder programme in January 2024, February 2024 and to date?

Clarification

I would like to re-cast questions as below (so as to align the time periods as much as possible):

1. How many Pathfinder sites were registered with NHSBA in April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December 2023 and January and February 2024 and to date?

2. How many Pathfinder sites were registered with NHSBA by ICB area in April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December 2023 and January and February 2024 and to date?

3. How much have community pharmacy contractors claimed for participating in the community pharmacy independent prescribing pathfinder programme for the period April to December 2023?

4. How much have community pharmacy contractors claimed by ICB area for participating in the community pharmacy independent prescribing pathfinder programme for the period April to December 2023?

Response

Registration Data for April to October 2023

I am writing to advise you that following a search of our paper and electronic records, I have established that the information you requested is not held by the NHS Business Services Authority.

As the Independent Prescribing Pathfinder (IPP) service was launched in November 2023, no registrations are recorded between April to October 2023.

More information on IPP can be found at the below web link:

https://www.nhsbsa.nhs.uk/pharmacies-gp-practices-and-appliance-contractors/dispensing-contractors-information/nhs-community-pharmacy-independent-prescribing-pathfinder-programme

November 2023 Onwards

A copy of the information is attached. Please read the below notes to ensure correct understanding of the data.

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

Source System – Insight Data Warehouse and data received from the NHSBSA User Research team.

Time period

November 2023-April 2024 (IPP Registration data) and November 2023 and December 2023 (Pharmacy Contractors data including reimbursements made to pharmacies for the IPP scheme)

This data consists of 2 files and contains a breakdown of monthly registrations by pharmacies with the NHSBSA for the Independent Prescribing Pathfinder scheme. The data is aggregated by ICB registrations on a monthly basis and is updated as of 2nd April 2024.

This dataset consists of 2 files;

Questions 1 & 2

This data contains a breakdown of monthly registrations by pharmacies with the NHSBSA for the Independent Prescribing Pathfinder scheme. The data is aggregated by ICB registrations on a monthly basis and is updated as of 2 April 2024.

Questions 3 & 4

This data contains a breakdown of payments made to contractors by the NHSBSA, aggregated by ICB for November and December 2023. Please note that both set up/registration fees and consultation payments are included within this data.