A copy of the information is attached.

NHSBSA 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 users.

Data in ePACT2 is sourced from the NHSBSA Information Services Data Warehouse and is derived from products prescribed on NHS prescriptions and dispensed in the Community. The data captured from prescription processing is used to calculate reimbursement and remuneration and includes prescription items which were prescribed in England and dispensed in the community in England as well as items prescribed in England and dispensed in Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland, Guernsey, Jersey, Alderney and the Isle of Man  

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

The data provided is based on England Hospital Trust prescribing only and may include items prescribed in England but dispensed in Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland, Guernsey, Jersey, Alderney and the Isle of Man  

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. The NHS Prescription Services has created pseudo BNF chapters, which are not published, for items not included in BNF chapters 1 to 15. The majority of such items are dressings and appliances, which the NHS Prescription Services has classified into four pseudo BNF chapters (20 to 23).

Net Ingredient cost (NIC) is the basic price of a drug as stated in Part II Clause 8 of the Drug Tariff but please note that where a price concession for items listed in Part VIIIA of the Drug Tariff has been agreed between the Department of Health and the Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee the NIC will reflect the concession price rather than the Drug Tariff price.

Items shows the number of times a product appears on a prescription form not the quantity prescribed.

Quantity x Items shows the total quantity for the number of prescribed items

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 2018” 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.