Changes to Actual Cost reporting calculation (Pharmacy only)

We've updated our prescription data reports to reflect the recent changes to the discount deduction applied to pharmacy contractors' monthly total of reimbursement prices, listed in the Drug Tariff Part V.

From April 2024, any financial report referencing actual cost includes discount calculated according to the new methodology. This change will take effect starting from April prescription data and the Itemised Prescribing Payment view released in June 2024. The deduction is split into three groups with their own deduction rates.

These rates are applied to monthly reimbursement prices of products in each specific group:

• Actual Cost = Basic NIC – appliance discount deduction rate + payment for consumables + out of pocket expenses + payment for containers
• Actual Cost = Basic NIC – generics discount deduction rate + payment for consumables + out of pocket expenses + payment for containers
• Actual Cost = Basic NIC – brands discount deduction rate + payment for consumables + out of pocket expenses + payment for containers
• Actual Cost = Basic NIC – zero discount deduction rate + payment for consumables + out of pocket expenses + payment for containers

The average discount rates no longer apply. You will therefore see trends of spikes in product costs that are zero discount (upwards) and generics (downwards).

The changes will be integrated into the relevant ePACT2 reports and dashboards, NHSBSA webpages, and public-facing datasets.

This will affect the following datasets held on the Open Data Portal:

Hospital Prescribing Dispensed in the Community

English Prescribing Dataset (EPD)

English Prescribing Dataset (EPD) with SNOMED Code