FOI-03681

Thank you for your request for information about the following: 

##Request 

<p><i>‘Please can I request an update to FOI-03609, for the same query but to reflect the next data month available - that is, January 2026 (Year_Month 202601)</i></p>

<p><i>I am looking to ascertain the number of monthly prescription items, cost and quantity of each medicine included in list A (below), that are being prescribed to patients who are not also in receipt of any of the medicines from the group defined in list B (also below).</i></p>

<p><i>This information at a national (England) level would be most useful. Secondly, I would also like the information at ICB level.</i></p>

<p><i>List A:  

medicines with the following BNFID prefixes  0601023AB*, 0601023AI*, 0601023AQ*, 0601023AS*, 0601023AW*, 0601023AZ*, 0601023Y0*, ie: 

0601023ABAAAAAA 

0601023ABBBAAAA 

0601023ABBCAAAA 

0601023AIAAAAAA 

0601023AIAAABAB 

0601023AIAAACAC 

0601023AIBBAAAA 

0601023AIBBABAB 

0601023AIBBACAC 

0601023AQAAAAAA 

0601023AQAAABAB 

0601023AQAAACAC 

0601023AQAAADAD 

0601023AQBBAAAA 

0601023AQBBABAB 

0601023AQBBACAC 

0601023AQBBADAD 

0601023ASAAAAAA 

0601023ASAAABAB 

0601023ASBBAAAA 

0601023ASBBABAB 

0601023AWAAAAAA 

0601023AWAAABAB 

0601023AWAAACAC 

0601023AWAAADAD 

0601023AWAAAEAE 

0601023AWAAAFAF 

0601023AWAAAGAG 

0601023AWAAAHAH 

0601023AWAAAIAI 

0601023AWBBAAAA 

0601023AWBBABAB 

0601023AWBBACAC 

0601023AWBCAAAD 

0601023AWBCABAE 

0601023AWBCACAF 

0601023AWBDAAAB 

0601023AWBDABAG 

0601023AWBDACAH 

0601023AWBDADAI 

0601023AWBDAEAJ 

0601023AZAAAAAA 

0601023AZAAABAB 

0601023Y0AAAAAA 

0601023Y0AAABAB 

0601023Y0AAACAC 

0601023Y0AAADAD 

0601023Y0AAAEAE 

0601023Y0BBAAAA 

0601023Y0BBABAB 

0601023Y0BCAAAC 

0601023Y0BCABAD 

0601023Y0BCACAE</i></p>

  

<p><i>List B:

List B - medicines with any of the following BNFID prefixes: 

Note 

0601011 

7-digit 

0601012 

7-digit 

0601021 

7-digit 

0601022 

7-digit 

0601040 

7-digit 

0601023B 

8-digit 

0601023I 

8-digit 

0601023R 

8-digit 

0601023S 

8-digit 

0601023U 

8-digit 

0601023V 

8-digit 

0601023W 

8-digit 

0601023X 

8-digit 

0601023Z 

8-digit 

0601023A0 

9-digit 

0601023AA 

9-digit 

0601023AC 

9-digit 

0601023AD 

9-digit 

0601023AE 

9-digit 

0601023AF 

9-digit 

0601023AG 

9-digit 

0601023AH 

9-digit 

0601023AJ 

9-digit 

0601023AK 

9-digit 

0601023AL 

9-digit 

0601023AM 

9-digit 

0601023AN 

9-digit 

0601023AP 

9-digit 

0601023AR 

9-digit 

0601023AU 

9-digit 

0601023AV 

9-digit 

0601023AX 

9-digit 

0601023AY 

9-digit'</i></p>

The NHS Business Services Authority (NHSBSA) received your request on 16 March 2026.  

We have handled your request under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA). 

##Our response 

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.  

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. 

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 https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2004/3244/contents/made 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.   

We have determined that the cost of compliance would exceed the non-central government limit for the following reasons: 

- While the information for January of 2026 is held by the NHSBSA, it is not held in an accessible format.  

- 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. 

The NHSBSA is therefore unable to answer any FOI requests relating to this data before it is processed. 

##Advice and assistance 

The NHSBSA publishes a data release calendar, available from the following link https://www.nhsbsa.nhs.uk/data-release-calendar, which indicates when information is planned to be available. 

In line with this published schedule, we would therefore advise that you resubmit your request after 20 March 2026. 

##Data Queries 

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. 

##Reusing the data and copyright 

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. 

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: “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.

Tags: NHS Prescriptions
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