Request

1 Please provide the number of items dispensed in the community and the number of patients split by Year of Birth between 1 January 2024 and 31 December 2024 Exclude hospital and dental prescribing Include only items prescribed and dispensed in England

2 Please provide the number of items dispensed in the community and the number of patients split by contractor and the following age bands 0 to 10 11 to 20 21 to 30 31 to 40 41 to 50 51 to 60 61 to 70 71 to 80 81 to 90 and 90 plus between 1 January 2024 and 31 December 2024 Exclude hospital and dental prescribing Include only items prescribed and dispensed in England

3 Please provide the number of items dispensed in the community and the number of patients split by Index of Multiple Deprivation and the same age bands listed above for the same period Exclude hospital and dental prescribing Include only items prescribed and dispensed in England

Response

Questions 1 and 2

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

Please read the notes below 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.

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.

Items supplied as part of a Pharmacy First consultation or service.

Time Period

January 2024 to December 2024, presented as a calendar year.

Organisation Data

The data provided is for prescriptions prescribed and dispensed in the community in England, excluding hospital and dental prescribing.

Question 3

The NHSBSA does not hold the requested information as we do not hold Index of Multiple Deprivation data.

However, dispenser postcodes have been provided which will allow for linking to Index of Multiple Deprivation (IMD) data provided by the Ministry of Housing,

Communities and Local Government.

The tool provided for linking postcodes to IMD can be found here:

https://imd-by-postcode.opendatacommunities.org/imd/2019

Please note that Distance Selling Pharmacies and Appliance Contractors may not have a postcode representative of the patients that they serve.

These contractors have been marked in the data with the DISTANCE_SELLING_PHARMACY_FLAG and APPLIANCE_CONTRACTOR_FLAG

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-02826

Your personal details will be removed from the published response.

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 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.