Request

Following receipt of my FOI request 02402 received in December 2024 I would like to request the same information for the period Oct 2024 to Dec 2024 by month.

Please can you provide the information in the form of an Excel spreadsheet.

Response

October 2024 and November 2024

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 from the below links:

https://opendata.nhsbsa.net/dataset/foi-02530

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

December 2024

A copy of this information is attached.

Unfortunately it is currently not possible to preview these data sets for October 2024, November 2024 or December 2024 on the Open Data Portal. We are in contact with our Data Services Support Team to determine the issue.

If you use “Explore” and “Download”, it will load the file to your computer direct.

We are working on some improvements to our portal at the moment, so please accept our apologies for the inconvenience caused. There are some “How To” guides on the site, that may assist you, but please do not hesitate to contact the team with any other queries.

How-to Resources - Open Data Portal

Please read the below notes to ensure correct understanding of the data.

Caveats

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

The data source was the NHSBSA Information Services Data Warehouse.

Exclusions

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.

Please note drugs flagged in our database as Schedule 2 and 3 controlled drugs have been excluded from this dataset for information security reasons to prevent the identification of organisations with high levels of controlled drug dispensing.

This data is limited to prescriptions prescribed in England and dispensed in either England, Scotland or Wales.

Time Period

December 2024

BNF CODE

The 11 characters at the beginning of a BNF code which specifies a Product (generic or branded) but not its strength or formulation.

PRODUCT_ORDER_NUMBER and PACK_ORDER_NUMBER

If this is not held in our database then it will be blank.

SNOMED_CONCEPT_ID

SNOMED CT is an internationally recognised coding system for electronic health records, which enables information to be shared between clinical systems in an easy, secure and accurate manner. SNOMED CT contains clinical terms for all aspects of NHS activity, from procedures and symptoms, through to clinical measurements, diagnoses and medications.

VMP_VMPP_AMP_AMPP

VMP / VMPP / AMP / AMPP indicates if the row of data relates to a virtual (VMP) or actual (AMP) product. With VMP and AMP at presentation level and VMPP and AMPP being at pack level.

ITEMS

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

NIC_GBP

The cost of the supplied item(s) calculated from the reimbursement price held on the NHSBSA master database. Given in Pounds Stirling.

TOTAL_QUANTITY

Total quantity is the number of items multiplied by the quantity prescribed. e.g. 2 items prescribed, one with a quantity of 2 and one with a quantity of 3, the total quantity would show as 5 (1 item x quantity of 2) + (1 item x quantity of 3)

EPD_FLAG

When this says 'EPD' the data is included in the English Prescribing dataset on our open data portal. This means the prescriptions were prescribed in England by GP practices/cost centres, dispensed in England, Jersey, Guernsey/Alderney, IOM, Wales, Scotland.

A link to the EPD https://opendata.nhsbsa.net/dataset/english-prescribing-data-epd

ACCOUNT_TYPE

Categorises the dispensing contractor according to country and type of contractor.

BNF_APPLIANCE_FLAG

Indicates if the presentation is categorised in the BNF chapters 20-23.

EPD_BNF_20_21_22

Indicates that the prescription is included in the English Prescribing dataset and the presentation is categorised in the BNF chapters 20-22.

EPD_BNF_23

Indicates that the prescription is included in the English Prescribing dataset and the presentation is categorised in the BNF chapter 23.

ENG_PRESC_BNF20_23

Indicates the prescription was prescribed in England, and the presentation is categorised in the BNF chapters 20-23. This is not limited by the type of prescribing organisation or the dispensing location.

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-02625

Your personal details will be removed from the published response.