Thank you for your request for information about the following:

Request

You asked us:

Please provide the following data regarding testosterone prescriptions in England:

1. Total number of testosterone prescriptions issued in each month from January 2020 to the most recent available month in 2025.
2. A breakdown of these prescriptions by:
   • Gender (male, female, other/unknown)
   • Age group (e.g., under 18, 18–24, 25–34, 35–44, 45–54, 55–64, 65+)

If possible, please include the BNF codes or names used to identify testosterone products in the dataset.

I would prefer the data in CSV or Excel format, if available.

The NHS Business Services Authority (NHSBSA) received your request on 10 July 2025.

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

Our 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 following notes to ensure your correct understanding of the data provided.

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: 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

The dataset:

The dataset shows the number of items and the presentation prescribed for testosterone in British National Formulary (BNF) paragraph 0604020.

The BNF Chemical Substances included are:

• Testosterone (0604020K0)
• Testosterone Enantate (0604020M0)
• Testosterone Propionate (0604020P0)
• Testosterone Undecanoate (0604020T0)
• Testosterone Esters (0604020U0)

BNF Code:

The British National Formulary (BNF) Code is a 15-digit code in which the first seven digits are allocated according to the categories in the BNF, and the last eight digits represent the medicinal product, form, strength and the link to the generic equivalent product. NHS Prescription Services has created pseudo BNF chapters, which are not published, for items not included in BNF chapters 1 to 15. Most of such items are dressings and appliances which NHS Prescription Services has classified into four pseudo BNF chapters (20 to 23).

Time Period:

January 2020 - May 2025 (the latest month available). The data is broken down by month.

Organisation Data:

The data covers prescriptions prescribed in England and dispensed in the community.

Items:

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

Age Bands:

Age bands included are for:

• under 18
• 18-24
• 25-34
• 35-44
• 45-54
• 55-64
• 65+ years of age

Gender:

Patient gender in the data is reported as any of the following:

• Male
• Female
• Not known (where no information is held)
• Indeterminate (where information is held which does not confirm either Male or Female)

Patient gender is 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.

Patient Information:

Patient identifiable figures are reported based on information captured during prescription processing activities. You should note that patient details cannot be captured from every prescription form and based on the criteria used for this analysis, patient age was captured for 98.98% 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.