Thank you for your request for information about the following:

Request

You asked us:

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-02937, however I would like this for May 2025 data.

On the 6 August 2025 you clarified the following:

Part 1:
For the most recent month (May25), per A medicine (see list below), per ICB and nationally:
How many A medicine scripts went to people not getting any B drug in this or the previous 11 months

Part 2:
In order to understand what "B" medicine (see list below) patients only receiving an "A" medicine in the current month were previously taking, I would like to know the following:

Of the A scripts that went to people not getting B in the current month, but who DID have a B script in the previous 11 months: what were the number of B scripts in each of those previous months, for each "A" BNFID.
The "B" scripts could be aggregated to BNF_CHEMICAL_SUBSTANCE or reported at BNFID level if easier.

I am requesting this at national level for May25.

I understand that these results will not be able to be summed and that the information on Drug B for people getting more than one "A" medicine in the month will feature twice.

Part 3:
I would like to know the number of unique patients getting more than one medicine from List A in May25.

Part 4:
I would also like to know the unique patient count for each row in part 2, at national level

Part 5:
If possible, I would also like parts 2 and 4 at ICB level.

List A:
medicines with the following BNFID prefixes: 0601023AB*, 0601023AI*, 0601023AQ*, 0601023AS*, 0601023AW*, 0601023AZ*, 0601023Y0*

List B:
medicines with any of the following BNFID 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

The NHS Business Services Authority (NHSBSA) received your request on 18 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 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 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

The data source was the NHSBSA Information Services Data Warehouse.

Time Period

A drug data limited to May 2025. B drug data looks at the 11 months before the A drug month so June 2024 to April 2025.

Organisation Data

The data provided is for prescriptions prescribed in England.

Drugs

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 99.32% of A drug prescription items and 99.60% of B drug prescription items.

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.

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

• FOI03022_part_1_England.csv
• FOI03022_part_1_ICB.csv
• FOI03022_part_2_and_4.csv
• FOI03022_part_3.csv
• FOI03022_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.

strong>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.

Patients

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).

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, 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 mailto:foirequests@nhsbsa.nhs.ukfoirequests@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 communicationsteamhs.ukcommunicationsteam@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:

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.