Thank you for your request for information about the following:

Request

You asked us:

Total dispensed Defined Daily Doses for England as a total and for each BNF Chapter. If a medication does not have a DDD then please ignore that medication. For the months May 2022 to the latest month you have data available. Split by Male / Female and by 5 year age bands as below.

The NHS Business Services Authority (NHSBSA) received your request on 5 March 2026.

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 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.

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.
• Items supplied under NHS pharmacy advanced services.

Drugs

Limited to drugs with a defined daily dose (DDD), grouped by BNF Chapter.

The DDD is a statistical measure of drug consumption, defined by the World Health Organization (WHO). It is used to standardise the comparison of drug usage between different drugs or between different health care environments.

Time Period

May 2022 - December 2025.

Organisation Data

The data provided is for prescriptions dispensed in England.

Patients

The dataset is split by gender and 5 year age bands, with a maximum age band of 90+.

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: “Data Warehouse, NHSBSA Copyright 2026”. 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.