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NHS primary-care prescribing in England: headline monthly series

The national totals — items, net ingredient cost and cost per item — one row per month.

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66rows

In the current release

January 2021 to June 2026

Coverage

June 2026

Latest data month

About this dataset

The headline national series for NHS primary-care prescribing in England: total prescription items dispensed, total net ingredient cost and average cost per item, one row per month. The smallest and most-cited series we publish, intended as the denominator for other analysis. Derived from the NHSBSA Prescription Cost Analysis and updated monthly.

How it is derived

Items and net ingredient cost are summed across every BNF presentation and every dispensing contractor in England for each published month. Cost per item is the month's cost divided by the month's items. No filtering or exclusion is applied.

What this data cannot tell you

  • 1 Net ingredient cost is a list price before discounts, clawback and dispensing fees, so it is not NHS expenditure on medicines.
  • 2 The number of working days differs between months, which moves the item count by a few per cent independently of any change in prescribing.
  • 3 Primary care only, and England only. Hospital-issued medicines and the other UK nations are not included.

NHS primary-care prescribing cost in England, by month

Net ingredient cost — the list price before discounts and dispensing fees.

NHS primary-care prescribing cost in England, by month£0£500m£1bn£1.5bn£2bnJan 2021Oct 2021Jul 2022Apr 2023Jan 2024Oct 2024Jul 2025Jun 2026£1bn

Source: NHSBSA English Prescribing Dataset OGL v3.0

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A live chart that updates itself when next month's data lands. The credit line is part of the snippet.

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Chart licensed under CC BY 4.0 — attribution link to PharmaInsight required. Underlying data © NHSBSA, Open Government Licence v3.0.

Preview

The first 20 rows of 66.

First rows of NHS primary-care prescribing in England: headline monthly series
month items net_ingredient_cost_gbp cost_per_item_gbp
2021-01 91324298 796047643.87 8.72
2021-02 85529074 744287380.82 8.7
2021-03 96048645 834802663.73 8.69
2021-04 93016975 807565750.99 8.68
2021-05 89069321 775350657.88 8.71
2021-06 95742101 834773682.66 8.72
2021-07 95498102 812113526.77 8.5
2021-08 90829194 769113945.99 8.47
2021-09 97263646 834273949.74 8.58
2021-10 96216862 814543432.69 8.47
2021-11 98010756 828505395.08 8.45
2021-12 100852702 857077055.51 8.5
2022-01 94336707 782378595.96 8.29
2022-02 88272331 734060068.04 8.32
2022-03 100167874 839711708.25 8.38
2022-04 93495121 777324160.9 8.31
2022-05 97895956 824597517.9 8.42
2022-06 95536100 812369517.76 8.5
2022-07 95314041 828310193.6 8.69
2022-08 97260137 848839055.01 8.73

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.

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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
  • items
  • net_ingredient_cost_gbp
  • cost_per_item_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.