FOI-02500

Thank you for your request for information about the following:

Request

You asked us:

The total number of prescriptions for the following antibiotics specifically for the treatment of endodontic infections from 2020 to 2024:
- Amoxicillin
- Clindamycin
- Metronidazole
If data for 2024 is not yet available, please provide data up to the most recent year available (e.g., 2023).
 
If you do not hold data specific to the treatment of endodontic infections, please provide the following:
 
The total number of prescriptions for amoxicillin, clindamycin, and metronidazole issued by dental practices from 2020 to the most recent year available.
 
Please provide the total number of recorded cases of endodontic infections in the UK from 2020 to 2024.

The NHS Business Services Authority (NHSBSA) received your request on 6 January 2025 

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.

NHSBSA

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 – 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. 

(Please note- for this particular dataset- data has been provided for prescriptions dispensed by English pharmacy contractors and dispensing doctors only, please 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

Monthly: January 2020-October 2024 (Data is aggregated by calendar year/part year. October 2024 is currently the most recent month of data available.
 
Organisation Data

The data is at national level and is for all dental prescribing of the named chemical substances that have been prescribed in the community in England and dispensed anywhere in the UK.

Dataset

This data is limited to the number of items prescribed for the chemical substances Amoxicillin (BNF Code 0501013B0), Clindamycin hydrochloride (0501060D0) and Metronidazole (0501110C0) by dental practices.

BNF

The 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 8 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). 
 
Items

Items shows the number of times a product appears on a prescription form, not the quantity prescribed.
Please also note that we do not hold nor capture any information in relation to endodontic infections.

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-02500

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: “ePACT2, 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.

Tags: BNF, NHS Prescription Services
Organization: Freedom of Information Disclosure Log