Request

You asked us:

I write to you under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 to request information from your branch regarding the number of Viagra prescriptions in different parts of England. The specific information we are requesting is as follows:

• The total number of Viagra prescriptions in Scotland.

• The number of Viagra prescriptions broken down by city.

You subsequently provided the following clarifications

1. The past 12 months is an appropriate time frame, it would be helpful if you could break it down by month with a total at the end, summarising the results.
2. Yes please, English data.
3. I can confirm I am happy with the stated amendment ‘the number of items prescribed using the BNF Chemical Substance of Sildenafil (Erectile Dysfunction)’.

The NHS Business Services Authority (NHSBSA) received your clarified request on 7 November 2024.

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

Our response

Number Of Prescriptions Broken Down By City

I am writing to advise you that following a search of our paper and electronic records, I have established that the information you requested is not held by the NHS Business Services Authority.

We cannot break down prescribing/dispensing by city (English or Scottish) as that is not a recognised geography in ePACT2. However prescribing data is available broken down by Region (see below).

Remaining Information

Under Section 21 of the FOIA we are not required to provide information in response to a request if it is already reasonably accessible to you.

The information you requested is available via either the Prescription Cost Analysis (PCA) or Electronic Prescription Dataset (EPD) data published monthly on our website:

https://opendata.nhsbsa.net/dataset/prescription-cost-analysis-pca-monthly-data

https://opendata.nhsbsa.net/dataset/english-prescribing-data-epd

The information can be found by adding a filter for ‘Sildenafil’ in the BNF Chemical Substance field.

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

Advice and assistance

The PCA is prescription items dispensed in the community in England that have been submitted to the NHSBSA for reimbursement and is released monthly. It can include items prescribed in England, Wales, Scotland, Guernsey, Alderney, Jersey, Isle of Man and Northern Ireland. Filtering on the BNF Chemical Substance name of Sildenafil (Erectile Dysfunction) will show only the relevant items dispensed. This data goes down to ICB level.

The EPD is a prescribing view and shows items that have been prescribed in the community in England and dispensed in England, Wales, Scotland, Guernsey, Alderney, Jersey, and the Isle of Man. This data is also monthly and filtering on the BNF Chemical Substance name will show only the relevant items. This data goes down to Practice level.

Both web pages have guidance documentation to accompany the datasets.