Request

You asked us:

Under the Freedom of Information Act 2000, I am requesting the following information held by NHS Business Services Authority:

The annual number of prescription items dispensed and the net ingredient cost (NIC) for paracetamol 500mg tablets in England, broken down by calendar year from 2015 to 2024 inclusive.

The same figures (items + NIC) for other medicines listed in NHS England’s March 2018 guidance on “conditions for which over the counter (OTC) items should not routinely be prescribed in primary care” (e.g. ibuprofen, indigestion remedies, antihistamines).

If available, a breakdown by Integrated Care System (ICS) or Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) for the same period.

I would prefer the data in a machine-readable format (CSV or Excel).

The NHS Business Services Authority (NHSBSA) received your request on 21 September 2025.

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

Our response

Under Section 21 of the FOIA we are not required to provide information in response to a request if it is already reasonably accessible to you.

The information you requested is accessible via our published datasets, which contain detailed data on the number of prescription items and the Net Ingredient Cost for prescriptions dispensed in England. Please refer to the link below for access.

Prescription Cost Analysis (PCA) Annual Statistics - Datasets - Open Data Portal

Please see the following link to view the section 21 in full - https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2000/36/section/21

Advice and assistance

You can locate the relevant data—such as paracetamol 500mg tablets—by applying filters prior to downloading. Filtering in advance helps streamline the process and reduces the file size, making the data easier to manage.

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-03195

Your personal details will be removed from the published response.