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Medicines dispensed in Primary Care

Population Size

2,898,677

People

Population Size statistic card

Years

2018

Years statistic card

Associated BioSamples

None/not available

Associated BioSamples statistic card

Geographic coverage

North West England: https://www.geonames.org/2641227/north-west.html

Geographic coverage statistic card

Lead time

2-6 months

Lead time statistic card

Summary

NHS England has established a monthly collection of patient-level data about medicines dispensed and claimed for in community settings. The dataset will ain to improve patient safety by contributing to safer and more effective prescribing. It will enable research and support clinical trials into the medicines used by patients and inform planning and assist in monitoring national priorities as well as improve services by helping to measure the uptake and effectiveness of new medicines.

Documentation

Dataset type

Health and disease

Dataset sub-type

Not applicable

Dataset population size

2898677

Keywords

Observations

Observed Node

Disambiguating Description

Measured Value

Measured Property

Observation Date

Events

Total number of entries for the latest 12 months of the reporting period

70911512

Count

18 Jun 2025

Persons

average age of persons in the dataset for the latest 12 months of data

63

average

25 Jun 2025

Provenance

Source of data extraction

EPR

Collection source setting

Community, Prescribing - Community pharmacy, Prescribing - Hospital, Primary care - Clinic, Secondary care - Accident and Emergency, Secondary care - In-patients, Secondary care - Outpatients

Patient pathway description

A patient receives a prescription from their GP or primary care provider, which is then dispensed by a community pharmacy, with details captured in the dataset to track medicine usage and prescribing trends in primary care

Biological sample availability

None/not available

Structural Metadata

Details

Publishing frequency

Monthly

Version

1.0.0

Modified

25/06/2025

Coverage

Start date

01/04/2018

Time lag

2-6 months

Geographic coverage

Maximum age range

112

Accessibility

Language

en

Alignment with standardised data models

NHS DATA DICTIONARY

Controlled vocabulary

LOCAL

Format

text/csv, application/SQL

Data Access Request

Dataset pipeline status

Not available

Time to dataset access

2-6 months

Access method category

TRE/SDE

Access service description

A secure workspace within the SDE will be implemented for each project. The standard package for a secure workspace includes a cloud-based VDI providing access to an instance of the platform and a suite of included tools. Further details can be provided on request

Jurisdiction

UK

Data use limitation

Research use only

Data use requirements

User-specific restriction

Data Controller

North West Secure Data Environment

Data Processor

Arden and GEM Commissioning Support Unit

Demographics

Dataset Types: Health and disease


Collection Sources: Community, Prescribing - Community pharmacy, Prescribing - Hospital, Primary care - Clinic, Secondary care - Accident and Emergency, Secondary care - In-patients, Secondary care - Outpatients

Publications about this dataset

The role of health and social factors in education outcome: A record-linked electronic birth cohort ...Evans A, Dunstan F, Fone DL, Bandyopadhyay A, Scho...

PloS one

Published - 2019