Antibiotic prescribing in England, monthly national series
Monthly antibacterial items and cost nationally, plus the 20 most-prescribed antibiotics.
In the current release
Coverage
Latest data month
About this dataset
Monthly NHS primary-care prescription items and net ingredient cost for antibacterial drugs (BNF section 5.1) in England, as a national series plus a breakdown of the 20 most-prescribed antibacterial substances. Antibiotic prescribing is strongly seasonal, peaking in winter, which makes this series most useful compared year-on-year rather than month-to-month. Derived from the NHSBSA Prescription Cost Analysis and updated monthly.
How it is derived
Items and net ingredient cost are summed over every presentation whose BNF code begins 0501 (section 5.1, antibacterial drugs), for each published month. The per-substance rows aggregate the same records to chemical substance level and keep the 20 largest by total items across the whole period, so the same 20 substances appear in every month and the series are directly comparable.
What this data cannot tell you
- 1 Primary care only. Antibiotics given in hospital, in dentistry outside NHS primary care, or in other settings are not included.
- 2 Items are not defined daily doses. A course length varies by drug and indication, so item counts are a rough proxy for antibiotic exposure, not a measure of it.
- 3 The seasonal peak means any month-on-month comparison is dominated by the time of year. Compare the same month across years.
- 4 Some antibacterials in section 5.1 are prescribed long-term for non-infective indications, such as low-dose lymecycline for acne.
Antibiotic prescribing in England, by month
Items dispensed for BNF section 5.1, antibacterial drugs — a strongly seasonal series.
Source: NHSBSA English Prescribing Dataset OGL v3.0
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Preview
The first 20 rows of 1,386.
| month | level | bnf_chemical_substance_code | bnf_chemical_substance | items | net_ingredient_cost_gbp |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2021-01 | All antibacterials | 2414403 | 14584598.61 | ||
| 2021-02 | All antibacterials | 2168879 | 13861647.26 | ||
| 2021-03 | All antibacterials | 2449513 | 15425343.21 | ||
| 2021-04 | All antibacterials | 2281126 | 14174031.09 | ||
| 2021-05 | All antibacterials | 2318640 | 13932467.41 | ||
| 2021-06 | All antibacterials | 2552643 | 14927091.34 | ||
| 2021-07 | All antibacterials | 2638610 | 14159933.42 | ||
| 2021-08 | All antibacterials | 2470953 | 13323245.08 | ||
| 2021-09 | All antibacterials | 2800877 | 14345089.67 | ||
| 2021-10 | All antibacterials | 3030299 | 13948950.25 | ||
| 2021-11 | All antibacterials | 3125569 | 14384336.24 | ||
| 2021-12 | All antibacterials | 3189616 | 14691280.04 | ||
| 2022-01 | All antibacterials | 2778072 | 13096113.96 | ||
| 2022-02 | All antibacterials | 2563129 | 12176444.28 | ||
| 2022-03 | All antibacterials | 3021575 | 13918951.4 | ||
| 2022-04 | All antibacterials | 2716029 | 12526847.32 | ||
| 2022-05 | All antibacterials | 2799683 | 13319959.09 | ||
| 2022-06 | All antibacterials | 2741757 | 13307190.83 | ||
| 2022-07 | All antibacterials | 2786861 | 14501344.29 | ||
| 2022-08 | All antibacterials | 2630932 | 14598701.71 |
Licence and attribution
The underlying figures are NHS open data published by the NHS Business Services Authority under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
The derived dataset on this page — the aggregation, the columns and the rates — is free to reuse, including commercially. We ask that you credit PharmaInsight with a link when you do, which is what lets other people find their way back to the method and the caveats.
How to cite
Citing a figure in something durable? Use the pinned 2026-06 snapshot rather than the latest file — it will not change when next month's data lands.
Download
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antibiotic-prescribing-england-latest.csv
1,386 rows · 103 KB · always current
-
antibiotic-prescribing-england-2026-06.csv
Pinned snapshot of the June 2026 release — use this in citations
At a glance
- Source NHSBSA Prescription Cost Analysis
- Coverage January 2021 to June 2026
- Latest data June 2026
- Updates Monthly
- Format CSV, UTF-8
- Licence OGL v3.0
- Geography England
Columns
- month
- level
- bnf_chemical_substance_code
- bnf_chemical_substance
- items
- net_ingredient_cost_gbp
Where we use this data
Refresh
Monthly, within a few days of the NHSBSA publication. Last published 25 August 2026.
More open data
Browse the full dataset catalogue, the sources we import from, and our methodology.