Reason for Prescribing 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. Remainder of Request 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. Time Period Financial year figures for 2015/16, 2016/17 and 2017/18   Prescribing Data Based on English prescribing data for items dispensed in England that were processed by the NHS BSA, not including items not dispensed, disallowed and those returned to the contractor for further clarification. Excluding items prescribed but not presented for dispensing or not submitted to NHS Prescription Services by the dispenser. The data also excludes prescriptions prescribed and dispensed in Prisons, Hospitals and Private prescriptions.                                     Figures provided as:- National figures for all English prescribing and dispensing Medication Data Data limited to only include prescribing from within the BNF section for CNS stimulants and drugs used for ADHD (4.3) Figures reported for all prescribing from within this BNF section Patient Identification Results limited to prescriptions items where the patient's NHS number could be identified from the prescription and verified by the latest information available via the Personal Demographics Service (PDS).  Please note, patient details cannot be captured/verified for every prescription and based on the criteria used for this analysis, patient identification was Possible for 99.76% of prescription forms. Patient gender is based on the information identified by PDS and results for this analysis have been split to show male, female or N/A (gender unknown or not specified). The patient age is based on the information available from the prescription form and reflects the Patients maximum age within the Financial Year period of prescribing which helps to prevent double counting of Patients. For example within one Financial year period a Patient may be prescribed items when they are aged 24 but later in the year be prescribed items when they are aged 25. In this scenario, the data produced would count the Patient once within the "25 to 34" age band based on their maximum age within the given Year period. The data has been grouped by age bands: "0 to 5", "6 to 17", "18 to 24", "25 to 34", "35 to 44", "45 to 54", "55 to 64" and "65 +" and "All Ages" which combines all of the specified age bands. Patient figures The patient numbers are based on a distinct count of the NHS number as captured from the prescription form and verified via PDS. The patient totals should not be combined or reported at any other levels than those provided in the dataset as this may result in the double-counting of patients.  For example, a single patient may appear in the results for multiple time periods. Items shows the number of times a product appears on a prescription form not the quantity prescribed. 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 Information Services Data Warehouse, 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.