Request

You asked us:

Dataset 1 is perfect, but dataset 2 is not quite what I was looking for. I realised I was not explicit in my request, so apologies.

Here is your description of Dataset 2: “Dataset 2 patient cohort In dataset 2, the data excludes any patients who have been prescribed one or more items of a product in BNF Chapter 23, between December 2020 and November 2021 inclusive.”

The correct description would be: Spend by day, excluding any spend from patients who have been prescribed one or more items of a product in BNF chapter 23 in the 12 months prior to that specific date. The table below shows the date ranges for the included spend in the requested dataset.

The NHS Business Services Authority (NHSBSA) received your request on 02 July 2025.

On 29 July 2025 you clarified that:

Yes, excluding spend of patients who had a prescription for any product in chapter 23 of the drug tariff based on the 12 month period prior is completely fine.

We have handled your request under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) 2000.

Our response

I can confirm that the NHSBSA holds the information you have requested and a copy of the information and notes explaining it is attached.

Please read the below notes to ensure correct understanding of the data.

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 is the NHSBSA Information Services Data Warehouse.

Time Period
The data includes items dispensed between December 2021 and March 2025 inclusive. Please note more recent prescribing data is available in the NHSBSA Data Warehouse, but in this release the data terminates at March 2025 in line with the original release of this FOI (FOI-02879).

Patient cohort
The data includes patients who have had an item from BNF chapter 23 dispensed on the date shown, excluding any patients who have been prescribed one or more items of a product in BNF Chapter 23 in the 12 full months prior to the month of the prescribed date shown. For example, the data point for 01-DEC-21 includes patients who have had a chapter 23 item prescribed on that date but excludes any patients who also had a chapter 23 item dispensed between December 2020 and November 2021.

Organisation Data
Limited to items prescribed and dispensed in England. Prescribing in any setting is included, where dispensed in the community.

Products
Restricted to products included in Chapter 23 of the BNF.

Prescription type
Limited to prescriptions issued under the Electronic Prescription Service (EPS). The NHSBSA does not hold prescribed or dispensed dates for paper prescriptions, so these cannot be included in a daily breakdown. 91.7% of items prescribed for Chapter 23 items between December 2021 and March 2025 were issued via EPS.

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.
• Items prescribed on paper forms (this request includes EPS activity only)

Publishing this response
Please note that this information will be published on our Freedom of Information disclosure log at: https://opendata.nhsbsa.net/dataset/foi-03013

Your personal details will be removed from the published response.

Data Queries
Please contact foirequests@nhsbsa.nhs.uk ensuring you quote the above reference if you have any specific questions regarding this response; or, if you feel you may be misunderstanding or misinterpreting the information; or, if you plan on publishing the data.

Reusing the data and copyright
If you plan on producing a press or broadcast story based upon the data please contact communicationsteam@nhsbsa.nhs.uk. 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: “Data Warehouse, NHSBSA Copyright 2025”. 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.