FOI-03214

Thank you for your request for information about the following: 

##Request 

<p><i>‘I would like to know how many women under 45 are currently been prescribed HRT in Rutland England UK’</i></p>

##[On 2 October 2025 we sent you the following clarification request] 

Can you please confirm if providing the number of relevant patients during the 2024/25 financial year would satisfy your request?  

We are unable to provide patient data for Rutland specifically. We can provide data by Integrated Care Board (ICB), which would be the number of patients within Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland ICB. Alternatively, we are also able to aggregate totals by Sub-Integrated Care Board location (SICBL's), so could provide three different patient counts for the three SICBL's located within Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland ICB.  

Can you please clarify if providing the data by ICB or SICBL would satisfy your request? 

##[On 6 October 2025 you clarified your request as follows] 

<p><i>‘Yes this would do, although I would like it broken down for all 3 areas and over the last 3 years.’</i></p>

The NHS Business Services Authority (NHSBSA) received your request on 26 September 2025, with clarification received on 2 October 2025.  

We have handled your request under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA).  

##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. 

##NHSBSA 

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 

Financial year data, for the years 2022/23, 2023/24, 2024/25 and 2025/26 (April 2025 – July 2025,4 months only)  

##Data 

This dataset is limited to the prescribing of products listed within the NHSBSA’s statistical publication on the prescribing of Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT) medication. The drugs included can be found within Appendix A in the following release: 

https://www.nhsbsa.nhs.uk/statistical-collections/hormone-replacement-therapy-england/hormone-replacement-therapy-england-april-2015-june-2024 

The list is based on presentations that are covered by the HRT Pre-Payment Certificate as licensed to treat menopause in the UK- please note that this list is subject to change and this data was prepared based on the list at the time of release.  

##Organisation Data 

The data covers patients who have been prescribed one or more relevant presentations within the three Sub-Integrated Care Board (SICBL) locations in NHS Leicestershire, Leicester and Rutland ICB. The number of patients is by each SICBL, for the financial years listed above.  

##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, age and gender) was only available for 99.26% 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.  Results are included for all identified female patients under the age of 45 (0-44).   

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.  

##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: “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: HRT
Organization: Freedom of Information Disclosure Log