Thank you for your request for information about the following:

‘I am looking for the gender breakdown for prescription data for England from 2017 until the most recent year you have on record for monoamine oxidase inhibitors (MAOIs). I am looking for the same data set for Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) and for Serotonin and norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors (SNRIs) please. I look forward to hearing from you.

On 9 November 2022 you clarified your request as follows:

I would like data for all the drugs listed under 4.3.2 MAOIs and under 4.3.3 SSRIs and then under 4.3.4 which is described as other antidepressant drugs.

Yes, I mean patient counts, split by gender and split by calendar year please.’

Your request was received on 17 October 2022 and has been dealt with under the terms of the Freedom of Information Act 2000.

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

January 2017 to December 2021 inclusive

Drugs

Limited to the following BNF Paragraphs;

40302 Monoamine-oxidase inhibitors (maois)

40303 Selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitors

40304 Other antidepressant drugs

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:

2017 97.28%

2018 97.78%

2019 98.01%

2020 98.86%

2021 99.10%

Patient Gender

Gender is shown as captured at the time of processing. Where a patient has more than one recorded gender across the time period, they will appear in more than one category and totals should therefore not be added to avoid double counting.

A patient is classified in one of four ways for gender by Personal Demographic Service (PDS)

0 – Unknown

1 – Male

2 – Female

9 – Indeterminate (unable to be classified as either male or female)

The NHSBSA also codifies gender for patients where we have been unable to match their NHS number to PDS as ‘Unknown’.

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.