FOI-03680

<p><strong>Request</strong></p>
<p><em>I would like to request a re-run of a previous Freedom of Information request which you have kindly responded to. I would like to make a new request under the Freedom of Information Act, for the following data:</em></p>
<p><em>The reference number for the previous request is 03611 and I would like to request data for the calendar month January 2026.</em></p>
<p><em>This is the full request for your information:</em></p>
<p><em>I would like to request under the Freedom of Information Act, for the calendar month January 2026,  information on reimbursed prescriptions by dispenser code. I am looking for everything that has been dispensed in England.  I understand that controlled drugs will be omitted from the response.</em></p>
<p><em>Please note that this request intentionally does not require both dispenser and prescriber code.</em></p>
<p><em>The following fields ONLY are required:</em></p>
<p><em>Date (Dispensed Year_Month)</em></p>
<p><em>Dispenser code</em></p>
<p><em>BNFID</em></p>
<p><em>Quantity</em></p>
<p><em>Items</em></p>
<p><em>NIC</em></p>
<p>The NHS Business Services Authority (NHSBSA) received your request on 16 March 2026.</p>
<p>We have handled your request under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA).</p>
<p><strong>Our response</strong></p>
<p>We have considered this request under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA) and are issuing a refusal notice under section 17 of the FOIA.</p>
<p>The NHSBSA does hold the requested information; however, we estimate that the cost of compliance with the request would exceed the appropriate limit under section 12 of the FOIA.</p>
<p>We estimate that the cost of complying with your request at this time would exceed the non-central Government limit of £450. The limit has been specified in <a href="https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2004/3244/contents/made">https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2004/3244/contents/made</a> and represents the estimated cost of one person spending 18 hours in determining whether the NHSBSA holds the information, and locating, retrieving, extracting and checking the information.</p>
<p>We have determined that the cost of compliance would exceed the non-central government limit for the following reasons:</p>
<p>While the information for January of 2026 is held by the NHSBSA, it is not held in an accessible format.</p>
<p>Pharmacists formally submit their electronic prescriptions in the 6 days after month end and also bundle up their paper prescriptions and send them to the NHSBSA for scanning and putting through an OCR engine. Once everything is in an electronic format it is validated, sent back for clarifications where required, and then it all goes through the pricing engine and finally uploaded into the data warehouse (we then refer to it as "processed"). This process takes approximately 7 weeks.</p>
<p>The NHSBSA is therefore unable to answer any FOI requests relating to this data before it is processed.</p>
<p><strong>Advice and assistance</strong></p>
<p>The NHSBSA publishes a data release calendar, available from the following link <a href="https://www.nhsbsa.nhs.uk/data-release-calendar">https://www.nhsbsa.nhs.uk/data-release-calendar</a>, which indicates when information is planned to be available.</p>
<p>In line with this published schedule, we would therefore advise that you resubmit your request after 20 March 2026.</p>
<p><strong>Publishing this response</strong></p>
<p>Please note that this information will be published on our Freedom of Information disclosure log at:</p>
<p><a href="https://opendata.nhsbsa.net/dataset/foi-03681">https://opendata.nhsbsa.net/dataset/foi-03681</a></p>
<p>Your personal details will be removed from the published response.</p>
<p><strong>Data Queries</strong></p>
<p>Please contact <a href="mailto:foirequests@nhsbsa.nhs.uk">foirequests@nhsbsa.nhs.uk</a> 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.</p>
<p><strong>Reusing the data and copyright</strong></p>
<p>If you plan on producing a press or broadcast story based upon the data please contact <a href="mailto:communicationsteam@nhsbsa.nhs.uk">communicationsteam@nhsbsa.nhs.uk</a>. This is important to ensure that the figures are not misunderstood or misrepresented.</p>
<p>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:</p>
<p><a href="http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3/">http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3/</a></p>
<p>Should you wish to re-use the information you must include the following statement: “NHSBSA Copyright 2026”. Failure to do so is a breach of the terms of the licence.</p>
<p>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.</p>

Tags: Prescriptions
Organization: Freedom of Information Disclosure Log