FOI-03421

__Request__

_Under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 I’m requesting the following information on prescribing of semaglutide and tirzepatide in England:_

_The number of patients who have been prescribed Wegovy (semaglutide) between August 2023 and November 2025 (or the latest month for which data are available), as the total number and broken down by month and by Integrated Care Board (ICB)._ 

_The number of patients who have been prescribed Mounjaro (tirzepatide) between January 2025 and November 2025 (or the latest month for which data are available), as the total number and broken down by month and by Integrated Care Board (ICB)._ 

_Date range: August 2023 and November 2025, January 2025 and November 2025_ 

On 10 December 2025, you clarified your request as follows: 

_Please can you include the generic prescriptions, but have it broken down so I can see generic and branded separately?_ 

_I also wanted to see if it's too late to add that I would like the prescriptions broken down by age of patient as well? Let me know if I should submit a separate request for this._
 
__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 to ensure your 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 one 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. 

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:__  

__Wegovy__  

August 2023 to September 2025. Please note that no prescribing is recorded in August 2023 due to Wegovy not appearing on the drug database until 4 September 2023. 

__Mounjaro__  

January 2025 to September 2025. 

September is the latest data available at this time. 

__Organisation Data:__ 

The data is for items prescribed in England and dispensed in the community. 

__Data:__  

This dataset is limited to the prescribing of Wegovy or Mounjaro either by proprietary brand or generically. The generic for Wegovy is Semaglutide and for Mounjaro, it is Tirzepatide. 

Please note that prescribing of Semaglutide 0.5mg/0.37ml solution for injection 1.5ml pre-filled disposable devices has not been included in the Wegovy data, as we have no way to know if any generic prescribing resulted in Wegovy or Ozempic (not requested) being supplied to the patient.  

Prescribing of the associated brand Wegovy FlexTouch 0.5mg/0.37ml solution for injection 1.5ml pre-filled pens has been included. 

Presentations that may have been dispensed are as below: 

Mounjaro 2.5mg/0.5ml solution for injection pre-filled pens 

Mounjaro 5mg/0.5ml solution for injection pre-filled pens 

Mounjaro KwikPen 10mg/0.6ml solution for injection 2.4ml pre-filled pens 

Mounjaro KwikPen 12.5mg/0.6ml solution for injection 2.4ml pre-filled pens 

Mounjaro KwikPen 15mg/0.6ml solution for injection 2.4ml pre-filled pens 

Mounjaro KwikPen 2.5mg/0.6ml solution for injection 2.4ml pre-filled pens 

Mounjaro KwikPen 5mg/0.6ml solution for injection 2.4ml pre-filled pens 

Mounjaro KwikPen 7.5mg/0.6ml solution for injection 2.4ml pre-filled pens 

Wegovy FlexTouch 0.25mg/0.37ml solution for injection 1.5ml pre-filled pens 

Wegovy FlexTouch 0.5mg/0.37ml solution for injection 1.5ml pre-filled pens 

Wegovy FlexTouch 1.7mg/0.75ml solution for injection 3ml pre-filled pens 

Wegovy FlexTouch 1mg/0.75ml solution for injection 3ml pre-filled pens 

Wegovy FlexTouch 2.4mg/0.75ml solution for injection 3ml pre-filled pens 

The data is split into four separate files. There is one for each product showing the unique patient count split by month, patient age and ICB. There is also one for each separate product showing the unique patient count for the entire time-period, split by patient age and ICB. 

All files include item counts for additional information. 

__BNF Code:__ 

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 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. Most of these items are dressings and appliances which NHS Prescription Services has classified into four pseudo BNF chapters (20 to 23).    

__Items:__

This shows the number of times a product appears on a prescription form, not the quantity prescribed. 

__Patient Information:__  

Where patient identifiable figures have been reported they are based on the information captured during the prescription processing activities.  Please note, patient details cannot be captured from every prescription form and based on the criteria used for this analysis, patient information (NHS number) was only available for 99.13% of prescription items for Mounjaro patients and 98.23% of prescription items for Wegovy patients. 

The patient count figures are based on a distinct count of NHS number as captured from the prescription image.  

The figures for the number of identifiable patients should not be combined and reported at any other level than provided as this may result in the double-counting of patients. For example, a single patient could appear in the results for more than one age band. 

 __Data quality for patient ages:__

We store information on the age of the recipient of each prescription as it was read by computer from images of paper prescriptions or as attached to messages sent through the electronic prescription system.  

We do not validate, verify or manually check the resulting information as part of the routine prescription processing. However, an additional check is carried out on a yearly basis to check the capture rate and accuracy of the stored patient information. 

__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: Mounjaro, NHS Prescription Services, Semaglutide, Wegovy, tirzepatide
Organization: Freedom of Information Disclosure Log