Understand where NHS activity is changing - and what is driving the numbers.

Explore prescribing and hospital medicines patterns from the national picture to the local organisations represented in the data.

Compare activity over time, identify where use is concentrated and examine cost changes alongside prescription items and Drug Tariff reference prices. Bring the analysis into account planning, access discussions and generic-entry assessment.

Each view retains its source, period and coverage, with community and hospital measures interpreted separately.

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Start with the account-planning question

Investigate where recorded medicines activity is concentrated and how cost measures change over time. Search by medicine, British National Formulary (BNF) presentation or BNF code, then choose the geography and reporting period your discussion needs.

Read activity and cost together

Compare prescription items, community prescribing cost and cost per item before interpreting a change as a change in use.

For example, published NHSBSA English Prescribing Dataset figures for apixaban 5mg tablets in England show items rising by 16.9% while spend per item fell from £4.74 to £2.10 over twelve months - a price change, not a fall in use.

Keep community and hospital measures separate

Community dispensing and hospital medicines issues have different coverage, units and meanings, so they are examined as separate series, never as a combined share of use. Neither establishes patient-level uptake.

Indicative hospital cost does not reflect confidential discounts and rebates, is not actual net expenditure and is not equivalent to community prescribing cost.

Find the organisations relevant to your discussion

Compare published activity across integrated care boards (ICBs), hospital trusts and GP practices where the source represents them. Use organisation comparisons and ICB rankings to investigate concentration, without inferring unpublished local decisions.

Compare nations on their own terms

England and Scotland are kept separate, each with its own source, reporting period and nation-specific measure. Scottish cost measures are read within their own published scope, not treated as interchangeable with an English cost measure.

Put reimbursement reference prices in context

Examine Drug Tariff reimbursement reference prices alongside published activity and cost when assessing generic-entry questions. A reimbursement reference price is not NHS expenditure, a confidential net price or supplier income.

Take the analysis into account planning

Export NHS Analytics views to Excel with their sources and coverage, ready for access discussions, local variation reviews and follow-up questions. Months a source does not publish are listed by name and never drawn as zero.

Know what the sources can answer

NHS Analytics uses the NHSBSA English Prescribing Dataset, NHSBSA Secondary Care Medicines Data, Public Health Scotland prescribing data and the NHSBSA Drug Tariff. These published measures describe recorded activity and cost within their stated coverage. They do not reveal identifiable patients, confidential NHS prices or unpublished commissioning decisions.

For activity over time alongside positive UK HTA decisions, see NHS Intelligence.

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