Request

You asked us:

I am looking for the following data under the Freedom of Information Act 2000.

Please can you supply the monthly and annual data from when your records begin to January 2025 (or the latest available month). I am looking for patients who are currently identified as female in NHSBSA's records.

1. The number of NHS prescriptions for testosterone medication for women

2. If possible, please can you also supply this data split into prescription for women aged under 40 and those aged 40 and over

The NHS Business Services Authority (NHSBSA) received your request on Friday 14 March 2025.

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

Our response

I can confirm that we hold the information you have requested and a copy of the information and notes explaining this is attached.

Please read the below notes to ensure correct understanding of the data. You should also note that we do not capture the clinical reason why a drug has been prescribed.

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

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.

This dataset:

This dataset shows the number of items prescribed of testosterone in British National Formulary (BNF) paragraph 0604020. BNF Chemical Substances included are:

• Testosterone BNF 0604020K0

• Testosterone enantate BNF 0604020M0

• Testosterone propionate BNF 0604020P0

• Testosterone undecanoate BNF 0604020T0

• Testosterone esters BNF 0604020U0

Time Period:

Monthly data April 2015 – January 2025 (latest data available). Please note patient gender is only available from April 2015.

Organisation Data:

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

Items:

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

Age Bands:

Age bands included are for female patients aged under 40 years of age, and for those aged 40 years and above.

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.

Gender is either: Male, Female, Not Known (where no information is held) or Indeterminate (where information is held which does not confirm either Male or Female).

Patient Information:

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 and based on the criteria used for this analysis, patient age was captured for 99.97% of prescription items.

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 2025”. 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.