Request

Many thanks for the detailed response to my recent FOI. Could I ask you send the same analysis for the following Part IX segment: 2394 This segment contains both pouches and flanges but I have attached an excel document which lists only the pouches which are relevant to this segment. This request will allow me to see all existing and new Stoma patients.

On the 7 September 2022 you clarified the following:

Yes, if you could filter on the codes sent that would be great, just trying to avoid duplications.

Response

A copy of the information is attached.

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.

Time Period

Answers are based on January 2020 to December 2021 data For first prescribing data is taken from all data held in the data warehouse, the first prescribing in the data warehouse for the described BNF sections with an identified patient is 201504. Patients may have had prescribing prior to this but the data is not available prior to this point.

Drugs

Limited to the following BNF sections;

2394 Two Piece Ostomy Systems (selected list provided by requestor)

Organisation Data

Only items that were dispensed in the community in England have been included

Data is limited to prescriptions where an NHS Number was captured during NHSBSA prescription processing, the following shows the percentages of prescription items with an identified NHS Number per calendar year:

2015 71.18

2016 95.1

2017 96.08

2018 96.24

2019 96.76

2020 97.41

2021 97.76

2022 97.95

Questions are answered in separated csv as follows

FOI27621_Q1

‘How many patients had a prescription filled with one or more of these lines in the 12 months January-December 2021. This should be unique patients only i.e. even if they had 10 prescriptions presented they should only be counted once.’

The number of unique patients with prescribing within the given limitations of the dataset

The following question is answered in two CSVs, split by year.

‘How many of these patients presented a prescription for the first time in 2021 and separately in 2020, again just one unique entry please.’

FOI27621_Q2_2021

The NHSBSA does not hold data showing a patient’s first prescribing of a given drug. This has been calculated by excluding all patients with prescribing of drugs within the supplied drug list in the data Warehouse prior to 2021 who had prescribing within the supplied drug list in 2021.

FOI27621_Q2_2020

The NHSBSA does not hold data showing a patient’s first prescribing of a given drug. This has been calculated by excluding all patients with prescribing of drugs within the supplied drug list in the data Warehouse prior to 2020 who had prescribing within the supplied drug list in 2020.

If you have any queries regarding the data provided, or if you plan on publishing the data, please contact nhsbsa.foirequests@nhsbsa.nhs.uk ensuring you quote the above reference. This is important to ensure that the figures are not misunderstood or misrepresented.

If you plan on producing a press or broadcast story based upon the data please contact nhsbsa.communicationsteam@nhs.net. 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: “NHSBSA Information Services Data Warehouse, NHSBSA Copyright 2022” This information is licenced under the terms of the Open Government Licence:

http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3/

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.