Request

Dear NHS Business Services Authority,

Please can you supply *referenced data:

1 - The number of free prescriptions claimed per financial year for the last 4 - 10years & therefore paid for by the government (taxpayers).

2 - Clarify if you include PPC (pre payment certificates) as 'free' prescriptions i.e are included in the above figure if so then give a figure of PPCs.

3 - The cost of the free prescriptions (i.e 2billion x £9.90 = £19.8 billion)

4 - The average prescription number per person per age range. i.e pensioners claim the most yet get free when could be moved to PPCs.

Condition- Please supply what data / figures you can, if you are not able to meet a certain request please use common sense.

i.e - If you only have data for 2years then supply that etc.

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.

For Questions 1 - 3 please refer to the supporting management information associated with the Prescription Cost Analysis statistical release:

See https://www.nhsbsa.nhs.uk/statistical-collections/prescription-cost-analysis-england/prescription-cost-analysis-england-202425

Specifically: "Exemption Category management information (Excel)" https://nhsbsa-opendata.s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/pca/pca_exemption_categories_2024_25_v001.xlsx

Question 1: The table described above provides data on prescriptions where no charge was paid at the point of dispensing is available as a supplementary report to the Prescription Cost Analysis data.

Question 2: This table gives the reason - recorded in our system as an 'Exemption category' - that a charge was not paid at the point of dispensing where our systems were able to record it - those reasons will include cases where a patient held a valid pre-payment certificate.

Please note that exemptions from the charge are handled at prescription form level, some item level charges such as Free of Charge Contraceptives are not recorded in the itemised data.

Question 3: The report gives 'costs' on two bases in the 'Exemption_categories' worksheet and the 'Estimated_charges' worksheet.

Please refer to the notes for mode detail on the meaning of these different types of 'cost'.

Question 4: The attached table, "FOI02921_Q4.csv", includes the number of prescription items and number of identified patients by age band and items per patient, where these are recorded in our database.

Please note that whilst usually one charge per item is applicable this is not always the case for prescriptions with different strengths or for combination products or for appliances that come with accessories or as kits.

The applicable number of charges is not held on record for prescription items where no charges were paid.

We don't hold data on 'pensioners' so we've used a standard 5 year age band grouping that we hold in our database.

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.

• Prescription items dispensed in England and submitted to NHSBSA for reimbursement. Note some items could have been prescribed in other parts of the UK.

• Prescription items supplied by pharmacies as part of the 'pharmacy first clinical pathways' advanced service under the associated Patient Group Directions.

Time Period:

• By Financial year 2015/16 to 2024/25

The Data excludes:

• Prescription items where an age was not recorded in our database

• Prescription items where an NHS number was not recorded in our database.

• 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.

Patient age:

• The patient age stored in our data warehouse is based upon the following logic and data sources: https://www.nhsbsa.nhs.uk/sites/default/files/2018-02/180115%20Age%20Logic%20Summary%20Flow%20Chart%20-%20Revised%20Layout.pdf

• Age is recorded in whole years so patients may receive prescriptions at two ages and sometimes two age bands over the course of a year. Adding patient counts across consecutive age groups may result in counting some patients more than once.

Data Source:

The data source was the NHSBSA Information Services Data Warehouse.

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: “Data Warehouse, 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.