Request

Could I please request the prescribing data for unlicensed cannabis based medicinal products (CBMP) prescribed privately, from Jan 2022 until the most recent available.

Can this be broken down on a monthly basis, showing the volume of prescriptions issued in this time period.

If possible can an item breakdown be issued e.g. number of prescriptions for flower, oil, vape cartridges etc this does not need to be monthly, but can be done annually.

Response

Question: Could I please request the prescribing data for unlicensed cannabis based medicinal products (CBMP) prescribed privately, from Jan 2022 until the most recent available.

Can this be broken down on a monthly basis, showing the volume of prescriptions issued in this time period.

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://opendata.nhsbsa.net/dataset/foi-02030

Please see the following link to view the section 21 in full - https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2000/36/section/21

Question: If possible can an item breakdown be issued e.g. number of prescriptions for flower, oil, vape cartridges etc this does not need to be monthly, but can be done annually.

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. Please note that these products are not held on the NHSBSA drug database and are populated manually from viewing the prescription, therefore the information is not held in a standard format. For example, there may be spelling variations and abbreviations arising from the prescribers such as flower, flos, flo, floral.

The NHSBSA is therefore unable to accurately provide or report on any aggregation or summary of this information.

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 When prescriptions are processed by NHSBSA data capture, prescriptions sometimes contain prescribing of medicines that were not populated on the NHSBSA drug database at the time. This type of order will be captured as an ‘unspecified drug.’ Data for prescribing of unlicensed cannabis-based medicines has been taken from data captured as unspecified prescribing. Unlicensed cannabis-based medicines are identified by an additional review process which occurs after the prescriptions have been processed. The items identified by this review are reported against the date that the prescription was written and not necessarily when they were submitted. Therefore, these figures may be subject to change if the prescription is submitted to the NHSBSA in a later month.

This dataset This dataset shows a breakdown of Private Unlicensed cannabis items prescribed, including the number of items prescribed for each product.

Time Period January 2022-October 2023 (the latest available month currently). Data is aggregated by calendar year.

Organisation Data Data for private unlicensed prescriptions is limited to prescriptions dispensed in England.

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

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.