Request

You asked us:

Please can you supply the community pharmacy management information file from 1st January 2025, for each month, to the most recent complete month that is available.

This information has previously been supplied (e.g. FOI-02691)
detailing monthly Community Pharmacy payments by type of payment and contractor account. Please can you include all drug costs, fees, patient charges, locally authorised payments, etc. Other details such as the numbers of items dispensed and patient charges collected are also included.

I understand that Controlled Drug information will be exempted un Section 38, and that the management information file reflects the contractor's payment and prescription data associated with the Integrated Care Boards (ICBs) structure at the relevant payment date.

The NHS Business Services Authority (NHSBSA) received your request on 22 October 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 some of the information and notes explaining it is attached.

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.

Some of the monthly data you requested is available from the NHBSA Open Data Portal in response to previous FOI requests.

January - March 2025 Pharmacy Contractor data is published as part of our response to FOI-02691 and FOI-02908. Please see our responses linked below:

FOI-02691: https://opendata.nhsbsa.net/dataset/foi-02691
FOI-02908: https://opendata.nhsbsa.net/dataset/foi-02908

January - June 2025 Appliance Contractor data is published as part of FOI-02654, FOI-02691, FOI-02874 and FOI-03127. Please see our responses linked below:

FOI-02654: https://opendata.nhsbsa.net/dataset/foi-02654
FOI-02691: https://opendata.nhsbsa.net/dataset/foi-02691
FOI-02874: https://opendata.nhsbsa.net/dataset/dc1efbed-3593-4f58-8fe7-66d13d378a53
FOI-03127: https://opendata.nhsbsa.net/dataset/foi-03127

The above requests, together with the data attached for this FOI, cover all available months of data you have requested.

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

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

Source System – Insight Data Warehouse.

Time period

April, May, June and July - Pharmacy data
July and August - Appliance data

This dataset

FOI 03295 has 6 files

This report consists of a management information file detailing monthly community pharmacy payment by type of payment and contractor account. Payments include all drug costs, fees, patient charges, locally authorised payments, etc. Other details such as the numbers of items dispensed and patient charges collected are also included.

The management information file reflects the contractor's payment and prescription data associated with the Integrated Care Boards (ICBs) structure at the relevant payment date.

Disclosure Control

The data in columns ‘METHADONE PAYMENT FEE’ and ‘CONTROLLED DRUGS FEE VALUE’ within the Pharmacy dataset have been removed following Information Governance policy.

Note- for further information relating to the payments included within this Data Dictionary, please consult the NHS Business Services Authority's Electronic Drug Tariff and NHS Prescription Services payment information (Local Authorised Payments National Menu):

https://www.nhsbsa.nhs.uk/pharmacies-gp-practices-and-appliance-contractors/drug-tariff

https://www.nhsbsa.nhs.uk/pharmacies-gp-practices-and-appliance-contractors/dispensing-contractors-information/payment-information

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-03295

Your personal details will be removed from the published response.