Thank you for your request for information about the following:

Under the FOI Act, I would like to request the release of updated data in the same format as FOI23354 released on 24 May 2022 - specifically: “part 1 provides a monthly breakdown of private prescribing for unlicensed cannabis-based medicines.” This should be for the period Nov 2021 to the latest available monthly data and in a comparable format to the earlier time series.

Your request was received on 30 September 2022 and has been dealt with under the terms of the Freedom of Information Act 2000.

Response

A copy of the information is attached.

Dataset

This dataset shows total items for Private prescriptions for unlicensed cannabis-based products. Also provided is a drug list of the prescribed unlicensed cannabis-based products.

Data Source

When prescriptions are processed by NHSBSA data capture, prescriptions sometimes contain prescribing of medicines that were not populated on the NHSBSA drug database at the time. This type of order will be captured as an ‘unspecified drug’. Data for prescribing of unlicensed cannabis-based medicines has been taken from data captured as unspecified prescribing. Unlicensed cannabis-based medicines are identified by an additional review process which occurs after the prescriptions have been processed. The items identified by this review are reported against the date that the prescription was written and not necessarily when they were submitted. Therefore, these figures may be subject to change if the prescription is submitted to the NHSBSA in a later month.

Time Period

November 2018 to May 2022 (monthly). May 2022 is currently the latest data available.

Organisation Data

Data for private unlicensed prescriptions is limited to prescriptions dispensed in England

Items

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

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 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.