Three dispensing datasets have now migrated onto the Open Data Portal (ODP): Dispensing Doctors and Personally Administered (PADM) report Practice Prescribing Dispensing...
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Coming soon: Urgent Dental Appointments dataset
23 July 2025
We are pausing the planned release of monthly urgent dental treatment data. This decision has been made to allow further review and reflection on the methodology, including an assessment...
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Data in relation to the Vaccine Damage Payment Scheme (VDPS) has been published on our Open Data Portal. The VDPS provides a one-off, tax-free payment, currently of £120,000....
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Finalised Secondary Care Medicines Dataset (SCMD) for 2024/25 Financial Year — now available
8 July 2025
What’s new in this release The SCMD provides a provisional view of stock activity across NHS Trust sites. Each July, an annual finalised release is published for the preceding...
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The Contract Register provides details of the goods and services procured by the NHSBSA and delivered by third party providers. Data includes the name of the supplier, start and end dates...
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Introducing Rate Limiting on the NHSBSA Open Data Portal
20 December 2024
Introducing Rate Limiting on the NHSBSA Open Data Portal
The NHSBSA Open Data Portal provides essential healthcare data to researchers, policymakers, developers and the public. To keep the portal reliable and accessible for everyone, we’ve introduced rate limiting.
What is Rate Limiting?
Rate limiting helps manage traffic by capping the number of requests you can send in a minute or hour. If you go over the limit then an error will be displayed and you will need to wait before trying again. This ensures the portal stays fast, secure and fair for all users.
Why Do We Need Rate Limiting?
Rate limiting helps us to:
Prevent System Overload: Avoid slowdowns or crashes during busy times.
Ensure Fair Access: Stop any single user or system from monopolising resources.
Protect Against Abuse: Reduce risks from bots or malicious activity.
Manage Costs: Keep server demands and operating expenses in check.
What You Need to Know
Usage Limits: Each user can make a set number of API requests per minute or hour (e.g., 100 requests per minute).
Optimise Your Requests: Use caching and batch queries to avoid unnecessary calls.
Benefits of Rate Limiting
Keeps the portal fast and reliable.
Ensures equal access for everyone.
Protects against overuse or misuse.
The rate limits have been live tested over the past few months and feature as standard on many websites. With this in mind, we are not expecting these rate limits to impact how you access and interact with the NHSBSA Open Data Portal, however if you do encounter issues then please contact us at dataservicessupport@nhsbsa.nhs.uk.
The NHSBSA Open Data Portal provides essential healthcare data to researchers, policymakers, developers and the public. To keep the portal reliable and accessible for everyone, we’ve introduced rate limiting.
What is Rate Limiting?
Rate limiting helps manage traffic by capping the number of requests you can send in a minute or hour. If you go over the limit then an error will be displayed and you will need to wait before trying again. This ensures the portal stays fast, secure and fair for all users.
Why Do We Need Rate Limiting?
Rate limiting helps us to:
Prevent System Overload: Avoid slowdowns or crashes during busy times.
Ensure Fair Access: Stop any single user or system from monopolising resources.
Protect Against Abuse: Reduce risks from bots or malicious activity.
Manage Costs: Keep server demands and operating expenses in check.
What You Need to Know
Usage Limits: Each user can make a set number of API requests per minute or hour (e.g., 100 requests per minute).
Optimise Your Requests: Use caching and batch queries to avoid unnecessary calls.
Benefits of Rate Limiting
Keeps the portal fast and reliable.
Ensures equal access for everyone.
Protects against overuse or misuse.
The rate limits have been live tested over the past few months and feature as standard on many websites. With this in mind, we are not expecting these rate limits to impact how you access and interact with the NHSBSA Open Data Portal, however if you do encounter issues then please contact us at dataservicessupport@nhsbsa.nhs.uk.