FOI-01222

Thank you for your request for information about the following:

Hello, please can you tell me how many people are being prescribed ozempic in England / UK? many thanks if you have data for what prescribed for, pls can I have that too.

You subsequently clarified your request as follows:

Yes please include generic branding.... 
And as for time frame, I guess how many prescriptions in the month of May? or April?  the last month you have data for?
or if a month is too long, then the first week of May?

Your clarified request was received on 13 June 2023 and has been dealt with under the terms of the Freedom of Information Act 2000.

##Response

###‘data for what prescribed for’

I have established that 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. Some of these products can be used for a variety of clinical indications and therefore the drugs prescribed may have been prescribed for a different condition.

###Number of patients

Number of unique identified patients prescribed an item in England for all presentations of Ozempic or their generic equivalent of Semaglutide for the month of April 2023: 

__71,540__

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.

This dataset shows the number of unique patients prescribed at least one item of any presentation of Ozempic or their equivalent generic of Semaglutide in England.

###Time Period 
April 2023

###Organisation Data

The data is at national level and is for items prescribed in England and dispensed in the community only.

###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 (nhs number) was available for 99.28% 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 presentations. 

If you have any queries regarding the data provided, or if you plan on publishing the data, please contact foidata@nhsbsa.nhs.uk ensuring you quote the above reference. This is important to ensure that the figures are not misunderstood or misrepresented.

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:
“NHSBSA Copyright 2023” This information is licenced under the terms of the Open Government Licence:

http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3/ 

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: Drug data, NHS Prescription Services, epact2
Organization: Freedom of Information Disclosure Log