FOI-03920

##Request _I am writing to make a request under the Freedom of Information Act 2000._ _I would be grateful if you could provide the following prescribing data for England, broken down by gender (male, female, not known, indeterminate) and by calendar month:_ _1. Total prescription items for opioid analgesics (BNF Section 4.7.2) - January 2020 to the most recent month recorded._ _2. Total prescription items for hypnotics (BNF Section 4.1.1), including but not limited to zopiclone and zolpidem — January 2020 to the most recent month recorded._ _For each dataset, I would welcome the following fields where available:_ _• Prescribing month and year_ _• BNF chemical substance name and code_ _• Gender_ _• Number of items_ _• Number of unique patients (where a valid NHS number was captured)_ _I understand that patient-level data is not held in a way that links prescribing to clinical indication, and I am not requesting diagnosis-level data._ _I would be happy to receive this information in a machine-readable format such as CSV or Excel._ _If either part of this request exceeds the cost limit under Section 12, please let me know and I would be happy to discuss how it might be narrowed, for example, by reducing the time period or limiting to specific chemical substances._ ##Response I can confirm that the NHSBSA holds the information you have requested and a copy of the information is attached. Please read the notes, and the data dictionary attached, to ensure correct understanding of the data. __Number of monthly items prescribed, and a unique patient count aggregated by gender, for Chemical Substances within the British National Formulary (BNF) Paragraphs of Hypnotics (040101) and Opioid Analgesics (040702)__ NHS Prescription Services process prescriptionsfor pharmacy contractors, appliance contractors, dispensing doctors and for personal administration. Information is 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 for 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 (DHSC) users. __Data source – ePACT2__ Data in ePACT2 is sourced from the NHSBSA Data Warehouse and is derived from products prescribed on prescriptions and dispensed in the community. The data captured from prescription processing is used to calculate reimbursement and remuneration. It includes items prescribed in England, Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland, Guernsey/Alderney, Jersey and Isle of Man which have been dispensed in the community in England. English prescribing that has been dispensed in Wales, Scotland, Guernsey/Alderney, Jersey and Isle of Man is also included. For this dataset, data has been provided for prescriptions dispensed by English pharmacy contractors and dispensing doctors only. Refer to 'Organisation Data' for more information. 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__ Data has been provided by month from January 2020 to April 2026. April 2026 is currently the most recent month of data available. __Dataset__ The data provides the number of items prescribed on a monthly basis for chemical substances within the BNF Paragraphs of Hypnotics (040101) and Opioid Analgesics (040702). The data also confirms the number of unique identified patients prescribed each chemical substance per month, aggregated by the patient’s recorded gender. __Organisation data__ The data provided is for prescriptions prescribed in England, and dispensed anywhere in the UK within a community setting. __BNF classification__ The British National Formulary (BNF) code is a 15-digit code in which the first seven digits are allocated according to the categories in the BNF and the last eight digits represent the medicinal product, form, strength and the link to the generic equivalent product. NHS Prescription Services has created pseudo BNF chapters, which are not published, for items not included in BNF chapters 1 to 15. The majority of such items are dressings and appliances which NHS Prescription Services has classified into four pseudo BNF chapters (20 to 23). __Gender__ Patient gender has been reported using the latest patient gender information held by the NHSBSA Information Services data warehouse at the time that the data was extracted. This uses information from either the most recent Electronic Prescription Service (EPS) message or from the last time that NHSBSA received data about the patient's gender from NHS Personal Demographics Service. Gender is classified as: • male • female • not known (where no information is held) • indeterminate (where information is held but does not confirm either male or female) __Patient identification__ Where patient identifiable figures have been reported they are based on the information captured during the prescription processing activities. Patient details cannot be captured from every prescription form. For this dataset, patient information was available for 98.31% of prescription items. __Items__ Items show the number of times a product appears on a prescription form, not the quantity prescribed. __Data Queries__ Please contact [email protected] 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 [email protected] . 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: “ePACT2, NHSBSA Copyright 2026”. 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.