Request

You asked us:

Under the Freedom of Information Act 2000, I am requesting the following information on the prescribing of hypnotics and anxiolytics for children in England:

• The number of identified patients in England aged 17 years and under receiving prescriptions for BNF 0401 hypnotics and anxiolytics in each quarter of the financial years between 2015/2016 and 2024/2025 (or the latest data available) and the number of items dispensed each quarter for identified and non-identified patients in this age group.

• The number of identified patients in England aged 17 years and under receiving prescriptions for BNF 0401 hypnotics and anxiolytics in each quarter of the financial years between 2015/2016 and 2024/2025 (or the latest data available) and the number of items dispensed each quarter for identified and non-identified patients in this age group, split by gender.

• The number of identified patients in England aged 17 years and under receiving prescriptions for BNF 0401 hypnotics and anxiolytics in quarter each of the financial years between 2015/2016 and 2024/2025 (or the latest data available) and the number of items dispensed each quarter for identified and non-identified patients in this age group, split by BNF chemical substance name.

• The number of identified patients in England aged 17 years and under receiving prescriptions for BNF 0401 hypnotics and anxiolytics in quarter each of the financial years between 2015/2016 and 2024/2025 (or the latest data available) and the number of items dispensed each quarter for identified and non-identified patients in this age group, split by integrated care board.

The NHS Business Services Authority (NHSBSA) received your request on 17 October 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 with notes explaining this is attached.

Please read the 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 one 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 (DHSC) users.

Data Source - ePACT2: ePACT2 data 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 - Financial years 2015/16, 2016/17, 2017/18, 2018/19, 2019/20, 2020/21, 2021/22, 2022/23, 2023/24 2024/25 split quarterly. Note that the second quarter of the 2024/25 financial year is incomplete and only two months (July and August 2024) have been included.

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 eight 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 prescribing from the BNF Section 0401 – Hypnotics and Anxiolytics, for patients aged 17 years old and under. It is split into four parts.

Part 1: Number of items for identified and non-identified patients.

Part 2: Number of items for identified and non-identified patients indicating patient gender.

Part 3: Number of items for identified and non-identified patients indicating BNF Chemical Substance.

Part 4: Number of items for identified and non-identified patients indicating ICB (Integrated Care Board).

A date with the letter 'C' in brackets - example (C 01-APR-20) against ICB Name indicates that this organisation is closed as of the date stated. Not all Items can be attributed to an ICB. For example, Unidentified Doctors.

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

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 that 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 all patients aged 17 years old and under.

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 for chemical substances and ICBs.

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.