Request

1. The number of NHS England nicotine prescriptions (BNF section code: 4.10.2) by patient age for 2023 only using the ages 0 through to 25 inclusive.
2. The number of NHS England hypnotic prescriptions (BNF section code: 4.1.1) by patient age for 2023 only using the ages 0 through to 25 inclusive. Could you provide it in the same format and on the same basis as a previous FoI response from you [Ref: FOI-01555] which I have attached for your convenience?

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.

Prescribing in England for products within BNF paragraphs Hypnotics (BNF 040101) and Nicotine dependence (BNF 041002) for patients aged 0 to 25 for the calendar year 2023.

NHSBSA

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:

Calendar year 2023.

Organisation Data:

The data is for items prescribed in England regardless of where dispensed in the community.

Data:

This dataset is limited to the prescribing of products within BNF paragraphs Hypnotics (BNF 040101) and Nicotine dependence (BNF 041002) for patients aged 0 to 25. The data is broken down by 1 year age bands.

Please note: Not all ages between 0 to 25 have data for the requested period.

Items:

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

Patient Age:

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 patients aged 0 to 25 with results presented by 1 year age bands.

Please note: Not all patient’s age can be captured and therefore cannot be allocated to an age band.

The NHSBSA does not validate, verify or manually check the resulting information as part of the routine prescription processing.

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-02362