Thank you for your request for information about the following:

Request

‘I would like to know the following information please.

1. How many of the 51,568 Claims for Blood Pressure tests at Rimmingtons Pharmacy was carried out by a qualified pharmacist according to the service specification prior to January 2024. I would like to know how many of these were undertaken by a qualified registered pharmacists according to the BP service specification.

2. From the 51,568 BP carried out how many were conducted on a registered pharmacy premises.

3. How many ABPM were carried out on the 51,568 BP Claims.

4. How many of the 51,568 claims were acctually carried out on over 40 none diagnosed patients’

The NHS Business Services Authority (NHSBSA) received your request on 21 May 2024.

We have handled your request under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) 2000.

Our response

I can confirm that the NHSBSA holds the information you have requested and a copy of the information and notes explaining it 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

The data source was the NHSBSA Information Services Data Warehouse.

Time period

Data from August 2022 to December 2023. Data has been split into August 2022 to August 2023 and September 2023 to December 2023. This is because data on the professional role administering the test is only available from September 2023 onwards, please see the below notes for further understanding of this.

Please also note there was no data for the account for October 2023.

The month provided relates to what the contractor has submitted for the given month.

Organisation

The data is limited to the pharmacy account RIMMINGTON PHARMACY (FX417).

This is the Organisational Data Service (ODS) code of the pharmacy provider who provided the service and is therefore making the claim.

This is submitted to the NHS BSA via the service API by the pharmacy contractor.

Professional Role

This data is provided to the NHS BSA via the API by the pharmacy contractor.

We do not hold further information regarding the individual providing the test.

CBPM is the count of blood pressure tests where the service type is indicated as Clinic Test.

ABPM is the count of blood pressure tests where the service type is indicated as ABPM.

A patient may receive both a CBPM and an ABPM in which case they are counted in both CBPM and ABPM figures.

Further information on the API can be found in the service spec at

https://www.nhsbsa.nhs.uk/sites/default/files/2023-09/NHS-BSA-CVD-API-Client-Specification-v2.3.pdf

The API was used from September 2023 onwards. We do not hold the professional role split from before the API was in use.

Data on the diagnosis is not supplied to the NHS BSA and therefore, the requested information in relation to question 4 is not held by the NHSBSA.

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.

Reusing the data and copyright

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 Copyright 2024” 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.