Thank you for your request for information about the following:

Request

You asked us:

Would be it possible please to have a data extract for following medicines:

• Selected Drug Classes: Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs [NSAIDs] containing: Medicine: Ibuprofen, Naproxen, Diclofenac, Ketoprofen, Acetaminophen/hydrocodone

• Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors [SSRIs]: Medicine: Fluoxetine, Sertraline, Paroxetine

• Serotonin-norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors [SNRIs]: Medicine: Venlafaxine, Duloxetine

• Tricyclic antidepressants [TCAs]: Medicine: Amitriptyline, Nortriptyline, Imipramine

• H2 histamine receptor antagonist -Medicine: Cimetidine The data that we require is on the medications listed above being prescribed to females of 18 to 55 years of age, for the last 20 years, if possible, please.

The NHS Business Services Authority (NHSBSA) received your request on 31 July 2024.

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

We requested clarification for this request on 6 August 2024 with the following:

1. Would you want the data aggregated or split up e.g calendar years/ financial years? And if it is split up, please confirm which option you would prefer it to be formatted?

2. Our data goes back to 2015, so this will be the furthest we will be able to provide. This would be prescribed in England, would this be ok?

3. Regarding the drugs mentioned, are you after 5 parts to the data with number of unique females between 18-55 on the following- NSAIDs, SSRIs, SNRIs, TCAs and H2 histamine receptor antagonist?

You responded with the following on 3 September 2024:

1. Can the data be aggregated by month/year so we can track seasonal changes, please.

2. Yes

3. Yes

Our response

I can confirm that the NHSBSA holds the information you have requested, and 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: 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.

Time Period – April 2015 – June 2024 (data is aggregated monthly)

Organisation Data: Prescribed in England.

BNF: The BNF Code is a 15-digit code in which the first seven digits are allocated according to the categories in the BNF and the last 8 digits represent the medicinal product, form, strength and the link to the generic equivalent product. NHS Prescription Services has created pseudo BNF chapters, which are not published, for items not included in BNF chapters 1 to 15. The majority of such items are dressings and appliances which NHS Prescription Services has classified into four pseudo BNF chapters (20 to 23).

Data: This dataset is restricted to the following BNF paragraphs and chemical substances held within them.

Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (1001010) - Diclofenac potassium (1001010AG): Diclofenac sodium (1001010C0): Ibuprofen (1001010J0): Ibuprofen lysine (1001010AD): Ibuprofen dihydrate (1001010AP): Ketoprofen (1001010L0): Naproxen (1001010P0): Naproxen sodium (100101070). H2-receptor antagonists (0103010) - Cimetidine (0103010D0) Other antidepressant drugs (0403040) - Venlafaxine (0403040W0), Duloxetine hydrochloride (0403040Y0) Selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitors (0403030) - Fluoxetine hydrochloride 0403030E0, Paroxetine hydrochloride (0403030P0), Sertraline hydrochloride (0403030Q0)

Tricyclic and related antidepressant drugs (0403010) - Amitriptyline hydrochloride (0403010B0), Imipramine hydrochloride (0403010N0), Nortriptyline (0403010V0) Gender: Patient gender has been reported using the latest patient gender information held by the NHSBSA Information Services data warehouse at the time that the data was extracted. This uses information from either the most recent Electronic Prescription Service (EPS) message or from the last time that NHSBSA received data about the patient's gender from NHS Personal Demographics Service.

Patient Identification: Where patient identifiable figures have been reported they are based on the information captured during the prescription processing activities. Please note, patient details cannot be captured from every prescription form. The patient count figures are based on a distinct count of NHS number as captured from the prescription image.

Patient ages are based on the age as captured from the prescription image and relates to the patient's age at the time of prescribing/dispensing. Results have been restricted to only show results for female patients aged between 18-55 years old.

The figures for the number of identifiable patients should not be combined and reported at any other level than provided as this may result in the double-counting of patients. For example, a single patient could appear in the results for multiple months and chemical substances.

Publishing this response

Please note that this information will be published on our Freedom of Information disclosure log at:

https://opendata.nhsbsa.net/dataset/foi-02126

Your personal details will be removed from the published response.

Data Queries

Please contact foirequests@nhsbsa.nhs.uk ensuring you quote the above reference if you have any specific questions regarding this response; or, if you feel you may be misunderstanding or misinterpreting the information; or, if you plan on publishing the data.

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: “ePACT2, 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.