Request

I am requesting your assistance under the Freedom of Information Act and hope that this request is able to be fulfilled reasonably easily.

I would like the same query as in FOI Request reference FOI-02656 , however I would like this for January and February 2025 data - so each of those data months.

Response

I can confirm that the NHSBSA holds the information you have requested and a copy of the information and notes explaining it is attached.

Please read the below 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 1 billion prescription items and payments totaling 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.

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.

Data Source

The data source was the NHSBSA Information Services Data Warehouse.

Time Period

A drug data limited to January 2025 and February 2025. B drug data looks at the 11 months before the A drug month so February 2024 to January 2025.

Organisation Data

The data provided is for prescriptions prescribed in England.

Drug group A is limited to drugs with the following BNF prefixes 0601023AB, 0601023AI, 0601023AQ, 0601023AS, 0601023AW, 0601023AZ, 0601023Y0*

Drug group B is limited to drugs with the following BNF prefixes 0601011, 0601012, 0601021, 0601022, 0601040, 0601023B, 0601023I, 0601023R, 0601023S, 0601023U, 0601023V, 0601023W, 0601023X, 0601023Z, 0601023A0, 0601023AA, 0601023AC, 0601023AD, 0601023AE, 0601023AF, 0601023AG, 0601023AH, 0601023AJ, 0601023AK, 0601023AL, 0601023AM, 0601023AN, 0601023AP, 0601023AR, 0601023AU, 0601023AV, 0601023AX, 0601023AY*

Identified Patients

Prescriptions are only included if an NHS Number has been captured during NHSBSA processing.

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 information (NHS number) was available for 99.26% of A drug prescription items and 99.59% of B drug prescription items.

The request includes multiple output .csv files, these are;

FOI02777_part_1_England.csv

FOI02777_part_1_ICB.csv

FOI02777_part_2_and_4.csv

FOI02777_part_3.csv

FOI02777_part_5.csv

Part 1 caveats.

Patients

Data is limited to prescriptions from patients with prescribing from Drug Group A, with no prescribing from Drug Group B in the same month or the 11 previous months. This is consistent across both organisational data outputs.

Part 2 and 4 caveats

Part 2 and 4 are for data at a national (England) level.

Patients

Data is limited to prescriptions from patients with prescribing from Drug Group A, with no prescribing from Drug Group B in the same month but having prescribing from drug group B in the 11 previous months.

A prefix of A in the column heading indicates the data in this column is linked to the drug list A.

A prefix of B in the column heading indicates the data in this column is linked to the drug list B.

The data should be viewed only for specific A drug presentations and months. For example limiting to A_YEAR_MONTH = 202408 and A_BNF_PRESENTATION_CODE = 0601023AQAAADAD will give you all the B drugs received, the 11 B months they were received in with item and patient counts for all patients receiving the selected A drug in the A month.

As patients can receive multiple A drugs in multiple months, the B drug data is repeated for every combination of A drug and A month. The data should not be aggregated as this will result in double counting of both items and patients.

Part 3 caveats

Part 3 is at a national (England) level.

Data is limited to patients who received prescribing of more than one BNF presentation from drug group A in the same month.

Part 5 caveats

Part 5 data is presented with the prescribing organisation (ICB).

Data is limited to prescriptions from patients with prescribing from Drug Group A, with no prescribing from Drug Group B in the same month but having prescribing from drug group B in the 11 previous months.

A prefix of A in the column heading indicates the data in this column is linked to the drug list A.

A prefix of B in the column heading indicates the data in this column is linked to the drug list B.

The data should be viewed only for specific A drug presentations, months and ICBs. For example limiting to A_YEAR_MONTH = 202408, A_BNF_PRESENTATION_CODE = 0601023AQAAADAD and A_ICB_NAME = QHL will give you all the B drugs received, the 11 B months they were received in with item and patient counts for all patients receiving the selected A drug in the A month and A ICB. As patients can receive multiple A drugs in multiple months and ICBs, the B drug data is repeated for every combination of A drug, A month and A ICB.

The data should not be aggregated as this will result in double counting of both items and patients.

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: “Dental Services, NHSBSA Copyright 2025” This information is licenced under the terms of the Open Government Licence:

http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3/

Failure to do so is a breach of the terms of the license.

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.