FOI-03688

Thank you for your request for information about the following:

##Request

You asked us:

<i>1) Please tell me how many unique patients were prescribed glucagon-like peptide-1 <span style="display: block; padding-left: 1em;">receptor agonists on the NHS in England in each of the following calendar years: </span>

* 2021 
* 2022 
* 2023 
* 2024 
* 2025 
 
2) If possible, please break down the figures for question 1 into ten-year age bands <span style="display: block; padding-left: 1em;">and male and female (for each age band) starting from 0-9, 10-19, 20-29, 30-39 etc. up to 70 and over. </span>
 
3) If possible, please tell me how many unique patients were prescribed glucagon-like <span style="display: block; padding-left: 1em;">peptide-1 receptor agonists on the NHS in England for weight loss and weight management in each of the following calendar years: </span>

* 2021 
* 2022 
* 2023 
* 2024 
* 2025 
 
4) If possible, please break down the figures for question 3 into ten-year age bands <span style="display: block; padding-left: 1em;">and male and female (for each age band) starting from 0-9, 10-19, 20-29, 30-39 etc. up to 70 and over. </span></i>

The NHS Business Services Authority (NHSBSA) received your request on 19 March 2026

We requested clarification on 26 March 2026:

<i>I am writing to ask you to clarify your request. This is because we need further details from you in order to identify and locate the information. 
 
Therefore I would be grateful if you would help with the below queries. 
 
Please note that we do not hold the condition for any prescribing so will not be able to answer Question 3 or 4. 
 
Please can you advise on what chemical substances you would like to include in Question 1 and Question 2 as there is no BNF heading for glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists. 
  
The most recent document from the MHRA (https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/697a35293c71d838df6bd3fb/DSU_GLP-1s_and_pancreatitis_for_publishing_29-01-26.pdf)  includes the following line around what is considered covered at chemical substance level - "The GLP-1 and GLP-1/GIP receptor agonists authorised in the UK include dulaglutide, exenatide, liraglutide, semaglutide and tirzepatide. Exenatide is no longer marketed in the UK and lixisenatide is no longer authorised." 
  
Do you want us to include all the chemical substances above or a sub-set. For instance would you still require prescribing of lixisenatide included in any analysis 
 
Are you wanting figures split by the prescribed chemical substances per year per age and gender or just one aggregated figure per year encompassing all chemical substances per age and gender.</i> 

You responded on 27 March 2026

<i>Thanks so much for coming back to me and for being so helpful in your request for clarification with the details from the MHRA.

Would it be possible to request seperate figures for a) semaglutide and b) tirzepatide - for all questions?

The refined request would be as follows: - 

1) Please tell me how many unique patients were prescribed a) semaglutide and b) tirzepatide on the NHS in England in each of the following calendar years: 

* 2021 
* 2022 
* 2023 
* 2024 
* 2025 

2) If possible, please break down the figures for question 1 into ten-year age bands <span style="display: block; padding-left: 1em;">and male and female (for each age band) starting from 0-9, 10-19, 20-29, 30-39 etc. up to 70 and over. </span>

3) If possible, please tell me how many unique patients were prescribed a) <span style="display: block; padding-left: 1em;">semaglutide and b) tirzepatide on the NHS in England for weight loss and weight management in each of the following calendar years: </span>

* 2021 
* 2022 
* 2023 
* 2024 
* 2025 

4) If possible, please break down the figures for question 3 into ten-year age bands <span style="display: block; padding-left: 1em;">and male and female (for each age band) starting from 0-9, 10-19, 20-29, 30-39 etc. up to 70 and over. </span>

Please let me know if anything is still unclear or problematic in any way.</i>

We have handled your request under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) 2000. 

##Our response

##Reason for Prescribing

As advised in our e-mail of 26 March 2026, the information you requested on patient condition is not held by the NHS Business Services Authority. No data is captured relating to the clinical indication a prescription is intended for. We hold data on which drugs have been prescribed, but not the condition it was prescribed to treat.

##Remaining Information

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.

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.

##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: 
Calendar years 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024 and 2025

##Organisation Data: 
The data is for items prescribed in England, regardless of where dispensed, in the community.

##Data: 
This dataset is limited to the prescribing of the BNF chemical substances of Semaglutide (BNF 0601023AW) and Tirzepatide (BNF 0601023AZ). It shows the number of unique identified patients at BNF chemical substance level, split by age band and gender.

##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).

##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 99.79% of prescription items.
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 multiple calendar years and age bands. The age that we hold for reporting can come from a range of sources and we record the best available information at the time of processing. This document sets out the logic used for this and gives more detail on how ages should be interpreted. This can be found in the file named FOI-03688 Age Verification.

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.
Results are grouped to show age ranges; 0-9, 10-19, 20-29, 30-39, 40-49, 50-59, 60-69 and those aged 70 or over.

##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

##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