Thank you for your request for information about the following:

Request

You asked us:

1. For the 2024 calendar year please state how many prescriptions were issued for drugs of BNF 4.1.1 - hypnotics? Please break these prescriptions down into age groups for the people they were prescribed to in the following age brackets (i) 0-9, (ii) 10-19, (iii) 20-29, (iv) 30-39, (v) 40-49, (vi) 50-59, (vii) 60-69, (viii) 70-79, (ix) 80-89 and (x) 90 and above.

2. In relation to the drugs prescribed in 2024 could you please state how many prescriptions, and the cost was for each of the chemicals within section 4.1.1.?

3. In relation to the 2024 calendar year please state for each CCG (I appreciate that these are old administrative units now but I would still like the figures on the CCG basis rather than the ICB): (i) how many prescriptions under 4.1.1 were made, (ii) the cost of these prescriptions, (iii) the total number of patients in that CCG that were provided with a prescription for this type of drug at any time during the year, and (iv) the total number of patients in this CCG.

The NHS Business Services Authority (NHSBSA) received your request on 25 July 2025.

We requested clarification on 7 August 2025 for the following:

We would be unable to present the data for Question 3 aggregated by the old CCG structure, as the data is no longer held to do this.

What we can do is either present the requested data aggregated by ICB, or aggregated by Sub-ICB Location (SICBL) instead?

The SICBL structure is a lower NHS geography than the ICB level and is the closest equivalent available to the CCG structure, as its direct replacement.

Please can you let us know which would suit you best?

You responded on the 7 August 2025 with the below:

Could you then provide it with SUB-ICB Locations (SICBLs) instead of old CCGs. However, could you provide me with some sort of key or index so that I can see where in the country these SICBLs cover?

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.

Question 1

Items prescribed in England for British National Formulary (BNF) chapter 4.1.1 - Hypnotics, for the following age groups: • 0-9 • 10-19 • 20-29 • 30-39 • 40-49 • 50-59 • 60-69 • 70-79 • 80-89 • 90+ • age unknown

Question 2

Prescriptions items and Net Ingredient Cost (£) for each BNF Chemical Substance 4.1.1 – Hypnotics prescribed in England.

Question 3

Prescriptions items and Net Ingredient Cost (£) for each sub integrated care board locations (SICBL) of BNF 4.1.1 – Hypnotics and the total number of unique patients and the patient list size for each SICBL.

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

• tems 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.

Time Period

The time-period is the 2024 calendar year.

Organisation Data

Part 1 – the data is at national level with items that were prescribed in England and then dispensed in the community. Part 2 – the data is at national level with items that were prescribed in England and dispensed in the community. Part 3 – the data is at SICBL level

This dataset

This dataset is for BNF 4.1.1 Hypnotics. These medicines are classified by their primary therapeutic indication. However, it is possible that they can be prescribed or other reasons outside of this primary therapeutic indication. The clinical indication of a prescription is not captured by NHSBSA during processing, and therefore we cannot determine the reason a prescription was issued.

Items

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

Net ingredient Cost (£)

The NIC is the basic price of a drug as stated in Drug Tariff Part II, Clause 8. You should note that, where a price concession for items listed in Drug Tariff Part VIII has been agreed between the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) and Community Pharmacy England, the NIC will reflect the price concession rather than the Drug Tariff price.

Age

Patients for whom no age is recorded is listed as age 'UNKNOWN'.

List Size

This is the number of patients registered with the practice. List size is recorded monthly, and at practice level. The list size for this data set is calculated as the average total list size for each SICBL within the year.

Patient Identification

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 99.46% of prescription items.

The patient count figures are based on a distinct count of NHS number as captured from the prescription image.

The figures for the number of identifiable patients should not be combined and reported at any other level than provided as this may result in the double-counting of patients. For example, a single patient could appear in the results for multiple presentations.

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-03041

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: “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.