FOI-03843

##Request

You asked us:

<i>I would like to request the same data as previously requested under FOI-01671, but with updated dates (1 January 2022-31 March 2026).
 
I am a student researcher at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and the data is requested for a project related to my studies.</i>

The NHS Business Services Authority (NHSBSA) received your request on 21 May 2026.   

We requested clarification on 26 May 2026

<i>To ensure we provide you with an accurate response, and maintain an audit trail for our records, we kindly ask you to specify the details of your request in full. This will help us maintain a consistent and reliable service. Thank you for your cooperation.</i>

You responded on 31 May 2026

<i>I would like to amend my request by providing the following information. 
 
For the period of 1 January 2022-31 March 2026 I request antibiotic prescribing data split by sex, age, GP practice, sub Integrated Care Board (sub-ICB), Integrated Care Board (ICB). <br>
Below are more details regarding requested variables<br>
-  Antibiotic prescribing - Antibiotic type prescribed, either by individual antibiotic drug name (i.e. gentamicin) or if this is not available by antibiotic family (e.g. aminoglycoside) - (e.g. BNF_CHEMICAL_SUBSTANCE CHEMICAL_SUBSTANCE_BNF_DESCR)<br>
- Age: age group -  0-1, 2-5, 6-10, 11-15, 16-20<br>
- Patient gender - any available gender information<br>
- by ICB, by sub-ICB level, by GP practice</i>

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 is attached.

Please read the below notes to ensure correct understanding of the data.

Please be aware that I have decided not to release the exact number of patients, where the number is fewer than 5. This is because the individuals could be identified when combined with other information that may be in the public domain or reasonably available.

This information falls under the exemption in section 40 subsections 2 and 3A (a) of the Freedom of Information Act.

This is because it would breach the first data protection principle as:

a)	it is not fair to disclose claimant personal details to the world and is likely to cause damage or distress.<br>
b)	these details are not of sufficient interest to the public to warrant an intrusion into the privacy of the patients.

Please click the below web link to see the exemption in full.

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2000/36/section/40

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.

##Exclusions
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: 
January 2022-March 2026. Data is aggregated over the full time period.
 
##Data: 
The data indicates the number of items prescribed to unique identified patients aged 20 or under of BNF Chemical Substances within BNF Section 501- Antibacterial Drugs.
 
The data is aggregated by individual Chemical Substance, specified age bands and patient gender. The data provided is also aggregated geographically by Integrated Care Board (ICB), Sub-Integrated Care Board (SICBL) and GP Practice.
 
A date with the letter 'C' in brackets - example (C 01-Apr-26) against an area indicates that this organisation is closed as of the date stated. 
 
##BNF Code:
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. Most of these items are dressings and appliances which NHS Prescription Services has classified into four pseudo BNF chapters (20 to 23).
 
Please note due to the nature of CSV formatting, the BNF Chemical Substance code for Ampicillin may convert to scientific notation when opening the dataset- the correct BNF Code for this Chemical Substance is 0501013E0.

##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 either: Male, Female, Not Known (where no information is held) or Indeterminate (where information is held which 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.  Please note, patient details cannot be captured from every prescription form and based on the criteria used for this analysis, patient information (age, gender and nhs number) was only available for 99.53% of prescription items. 
 
The patient count figures are based on a distinct count of NHS number as captured from the prescription image. 
 
Patient ages are based on the age as captured from the prescription image and relates to the patient's age at the time of prescribing/dispensing.  Results are presented by age band (0-1, 2-5, 6-10, 11-15, 16-20). Please note it is possible that a single patient may be included in the results for more than one age band where a patient has received prescribing at different ages during a financial year. 
 
Ultimately the age held in our records may be subject to errors originating from either external data sources such as the Electronic Prescribing System (EPS), the NHS Personal Demographics Service (PDS) or the NHSBSA optical character recognition process used to extract data from paper prescriptions. 
  
The specific ages in this question may be subject to those errors. We do not systematically review, validate, or amend the data after it has been processed or recorded.
 
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 multiple financial years, age bands and ICBs. 
 
##Items:
Shows the number of times a product appears on a prescription form not the quantity prescribed.

##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: “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.

Tags: NHS Presciption Services
Organization: Freedom of Information Disclosure Log