Request

Under the FOI Act I am requesting an update to my previous request FOI-01529 with additional data supplied by month to the end of the 2023 (the calendar year), and to end March 2024 (the NHS financial year) for all questions in previous request, covering both dental and prescription fines.

Response

Question 1 Part i

Please see a copy of the information 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: 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.

Dataset – The data covers all prescriptions which have been declared as exempt from payment from the recipient, aggregated monthly.

Time Period – October 2023-February 2024 (figures are presented on an aggregated monthly basis)

Please note that, at present, February 2024 is the most recent month for which data is available for prescription data.

Organisation Data - The data is for prescription items dispensed in the community in England.

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

Exemption Categories- The overall high level exemption rate is as robust as it can be in terms of the data we hold.

However, the data in relation to the standalone exemption categories does have significant limitations in terms of its quality. This is due to how information has been captured during our scanning process and even for prescriptions received via the Electronic Prescribing System, normally higher quality data, there is considerable uncertainty due to the increasing use of the Real Time Exemption Checking service (RTEC). Exemptions determined using RTEC are classified as “No Declaration/Declaration Not Specific” and this is likely to include a large but unknown number of prescriptions for those standalone exemption categories.

Exemption Categories included within the data are as follows:

• Under 16 / Aged 60 Or Over
• Aged 16-18 And In Full Time Education
• Aged 60 Or Over
• HC2 Charges
• HRT Pre-payment Certificate
• Income Based Job-seekers Allowance
• Income Support
• Maternity Exemption
• Medical Exemption
• NHS Tax Credit Exemption Certificate
• No Declaration/Declaration Not Specific
• Non-Chargeable Contraceptive
• Pension Guarantee Credit
• Pre-Payment Certificate
• Sexual Health
• Unassigned
• Universal Credit
• War/MOD pensioner exemption

Question 1 part ii

Please see a copy of the information attached.

This report contains the details from General FP17s processed in England for Exempt Adults for the Months November 2023 to March 2024 and includes activity by Foundation Dentists. The information within the report includes the data items and descriptions listed below.

Year Month: Used throughout the system to identify the specific year and month that the data relates to, i.e. for forms, it would be the month that the activity was scheduled. This is in the format 'YYYYMM' e.g. 201804 for April 2018.

Total FP17s: This is a count of the number of FP17s scheduled including adjustments for amended and deleted FP17s. Withdrawn FP17s are not included in the total count of FP17s. This figure may be zero or negative if deleted FP17s have been processed.

Exempt Adult Charge Payers: FP17s where the Patient is an Adult and Patient Charge Status is Exempt

Question 2,3,5 and 6

Please see a copy of the information attached.

Question 4

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.

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 eDEN System Report, ePACT2, NHSBSA Copyright 2024” 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.