Thank you for your request for information about the following:

Request

‘The number of Pharmacy first completed by clincial pathway for each individual pharmacy, listed by their ODS code and with full postal address details.

Could you provide the data for the month of March 2024 and April 2024 in EXCEL format please.

The data should be:

Column1--Completion Month

Column2--ODS Code

Column3--Pharmacy Name

Column4--Pharmacy Trading Name

Column5--Pharmacy Address

Column6--Pharmacy Post Code

Column7 --NumberofPharmacyFirstClinicalPathwaysConsultations-AcuteOtitisMedia

Column8--Number of Pharmacy First Clinical Pathways Consultations -Acute Sore Throat

Column9--Number of Pharmacy First Clinical Pathways Consultations-Impetigo

Column10--Number of Pharmacy First Clinical Pathways Consultations-Infected Insect Bites

Column11-- Number of Pharmacy First Clinical Pathways Consultations-Shingles

Column12-- Number of Pharmacy First Clinical Pathways Consultations-Sinusitis

Column13-- Number of Pharmacy First Clinical Pathways Consultations-Uncomplicated UTI

Column14-- Number of Pharmacy First Urgent Medicine Supply Consultations’

The NHS Business Services Authority (NHSBSA) received your request on 14 June 2024.

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

Our response

March 2024

We have considered this request under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA 2000) and are issuing a refusal notice under section 17 of the FOIA.

The NHSBSA does hold the requested information; however, we consider that this information is exempt from disclosure under section 21 of FOIA. This provides an exemption from the duty to disclose information where this is reasonable accessible to an applicant by other means.

This information is already available in the public domain and can be accessed at: https://www.nhsbsa.nhs.uk/prescription-data/dispensing-data the data can be accessed under the Pharmacy and appliance contractor dispensing data drop down and downloading the relevant month’s file.

The Pharmacy First consultation columns requested begin from column AH onwards in the data and cover the 8 fields requested in the FOI.

Please see the following link to view the section 21 in full - Freedom of Information Act 2000 (legislation.gov.uk)

April 2024

We have considered this request under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA 2000) and are issuing a refusal notice under section 17 of the FOIA.

The NHSBSA does hold the requested information; however, we consider that this information is exempt from disclosure under section 22 of the FOIA. This provides an exemption from the duty to disclose information where the requested information is intended for future publication.

The Information Commissioner’s Office guidance states that “the public authority

must, at the time of the request, hold the information and intend that it or “any other person” will publish it in future. This means that it must have a “settled expectation that the information will be published at some future date”.

The information is intended for future publication on 25 July 2024, please note this is an approximate date and may be subject to change.

Section 22 is a class-based, qualified exemption and is subject to the public interest test. This means that not only does the information have to prejudice one of the purposes listed, but before the information can be withheld, the public interest in preventing that prejudice must outweigh the public interest in disclosure.

Considerations for disclosure:

Public accountability.

The need for public authorities to be transparent in their dealings.

Considerations against disclosure:

The information is intended for future publication once finalised.

The information has not yet been extracted or processed by the NHSBSA and therefore, disclosure at this point in time may lead to data quality issues.

There is an inherent public interest in not disclosing information which could be misleading to the public and may not accurately reflect the final published dataset.

Conclusion:

We consider that the advantage to releasing this information now (rather than upon the planned publication) is outweighed by the potential prejudice to the completeness and consistency of the data provided.

Please see the following link to view the section 22 in full - Freedom of Information Act 2000 (legislation.gov.uk)

Data Queries

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