This is a beta version of OpenPrescribing Hospitals for testing and feedback purposes. Data and functionality may be incomplete. Please contact us if you find any issues or have feedback.
Below are some answers to common questions about the OpenPrescribing Hospitals platform. If you can't find the answer to your question here, or would like to provide feedback on the platform, please contact us .
The platform is currently in beta, which means it's made available early to allow us to gather feedback and improve the platform. This also allows you to get an early look at the platform and helps us build a community of users to drive the development of the platform.
This does mean that you may encounter occasional issues or features that are still being refined. Please let us know if you encounter any issues or have any feedback.
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The primary data source for the OpenPrescribing Hospitals platform is the Secondary Care Medicines Dataset (SCMD). The SCMD is collated by Rx-info and hosted on the National Health Service Business Services Authority (NHSBSA) Open Data Portal.
There is detailed user guide provided on the NHSBSA Open Data Portal alongside the data but briefly the SCMD contains processed pharmacy stock control data. Data is collected and curated from individual trusts by Rx-info. Rx-info then shares the data with the NHSBSA who make it openly available.
Other data sources which are linked to the SCMD to provide supplementary detail on the products and organisations within the SCMD, are described on the About page.
The SCMD is published monthly by the NHSBSA. Data is published with a 1 month delay, allowing for aggregation and curation of the dataset by Rx-Info prior to publication. The date of each release is available via the NHSBSA. This data is made available on the OpenPrescribing Hospitals platform shortly after publication by the NHSBSA.
New data is initially made available as provisional data (see What is provisional data?). You can check the status of data available for analysis on OpenPrescribing Hospitals using our Submission History page.
Monthly data within the SCMD is initially published as provisional data. Provisional data is subject to change as Trusts submitting to the SCMD can update historical issues to reflect actual use. This is known as backtracking and affects 45% of the NHS Trusts submitting data to the SCMD. Backtracking is at its greatest in the most recent 3 months of data. Two months after the close of the financial year - once backtracking is accounted for - data is published as finalised data.
To see the data available or to read more about how it is made available please refer to the NHSBSA Open Data Portal where the SCMD is hosted. Alternatively we provide a summary of the latest data availability on our Submission History page.
Stock control data is information collected from hospital pharmacy systems that is used to track and manage medicines use within hospitals. These systems support management of inventory levels, monitoring of medication usage and tracking of costs.
Unlike primary care prescribing data, hospital stock control data is not based on individual patient prescriptions. The data represents medication distribution within hospitals, such as issuing of medicines to wards or clinical areas, rather than actual patient-level prescribing.
All medicines and devices used by NHS Trusts in England with a dm+d code are included.
There are several possible reasons:
The platform includes data from all NHS hospital trusts in England that submit data to Rx-Info. This includes all NHS Acute, Teaching, Specialist, Mental Health and Community Trusts in England (this does not include medications dispensed by community pharmacy but this is available separately).
There are multiple reasons your hospital may not be present in the data presented. These include:
The SCMD contains pharmacy stock control data representing medication distribution within hospitals, such as issuing of medicines to wards or clinical areas, rather than actual patient-level prescribing. Not all of the stock that is issued within hospitals eventually ends up being used. In some hospitals, when this is the case and where their stock control system supports it, historical stock issues can be updated. This is known as Backtracking. Where supply made in a previous month is returned in a subsequent month, and the quantity returned is greater than the quantity issued in that month, the quantity reported will be negative.
You can read about this in our blog, More about hospital stock control data.
VMP is short for Virtual Medicinal Product. This is a component of the dictionary of medicines and devices (dm+d), the standard dictionary for medicines and devices used across the NHS and contains standardised codes, descriptions and metadata for individual items. VMPs describe a general class of medicines or device that may be available as an actual product. All of the data within the SCMD is reported at the level of VMPs. We commonly refer to these as products.
You can read more about VMPs in our blogs, Understanding the secondary care medicines dataset and Getting more from the secondary care medicines data using the dictionary of medicines and devices.
Defined Daily Dose (DDD) is a unit of measure for medicines consumption that enables comparison of usage across groups of medicines. They are defined and maintained by the World Health Organization (WHO), who define them as:
Defined Daily Dose (DDD): The assumed average maintenance dose per day for a drug used for its main indication in adults
Source: World Health Organization
The SCMD includes the indicative cost for each medicine or device within the dataset. The indicative cost is based on the community pharmacy reimbursement prices for generic and list prices for branded medicines. This does not reflect the actual cost paid by hospitals. This, as described in the SCMD release guidance, overestimates the total spend by a factor of two (though this overestimation is not uniform across all products):
The indicative cost in this data set will overestimate the total spend on medicines issued in hospitals. For example, the total indicative cost of medicines issued in secondary care for 2020 / 21 was £14.5 billion compared to the net actual cost of £7.59 billion (excluding central rebates).
The SCMD does not include NHS prescriptions supplied by the hospital and dispensed in community pharmacy (hospital FP10 prescriptions). This data is available in a separate dataset, Hospital Prescribing Dispensed in the Community, which we do not currently use on OpenPrescribing Hospitals. Medicines dispensed in community pharmacy make up a very small proportion of hospital medicines usage; in January 2025, medicines dispensed in community pharmacy accounted for £5.6m actual cost, which is a very small proportion of the near £2.1bn indicative cost in SCMD data for the same month (likely ~£1bn actual cost).
The SCMD dataset relies on submission of pharmacy stock control data by individual NHS Trusts. For some NHS Trusts, submissions are not available for some months or submissions are incomplete. The data completeness for individual NHS Trusts can be found on the Submission History page.
Quantity is the total amount of a medicine that has been issued as reported in the SCMD. The unit of measure used to measure the quantity varies across different products. Where possible, units are mapped to a consistent unit basis (e.g. quantities reported in micrograms and milligrams are both converted to quantity in grams) to allow for comparison between different products. Quantities reported in different unit bases may not be comparable.
There is no quantity reported when a Trust has not issued a product.
Measures can simply be a count of the amount of a drug being issued but more commonly a ratio is used. To calculate a ratio, we specify a list of products to include in the denominator and the subset of these products which make up the numerator. We then sum the quantity issued across the numerator and denominator separately, divide the numerator by the denominator and multiply by 100 to get a percentage.
You can read more about measures in our blog, Introducing OpenPrescribing Hospitals measures.
Percentile charts show the extent of variation in medication use at the level of individual trusts. You can read more about why we use them in our blogs, communicating variation in prescribing and highlighting variation in hospitals medicines usage.
Within the SCMD, it is possible for issued quantity to be negative (see Why are there negative values for some products?). When calculting measures with both a numerator and denominator, values are expected to be between 0% and 100%. However, negative values can result in the numerator being greater than the denominator (so the measure value can be greater than 100%) or the denominator being negative (so the measure value can be less than 0%).
The form in which a medicine is actually given to or taken by the patient. This may differ from the dispensing form - for example, a soluble tablet (dispensing form) becomes a solution (administration form) when dissolved in water before being taken by the patient.
The NHS standard dictionary for medicines and medical devices. It consists of 5 main classes of information and can be used to identify additional product information for products within the SCMD like grouping, form, chemical content, and administration route. Read more about it here.
The physical form in which a medicine is supplied or dispensed. This may differ from the administration form - for example, effervescent tablets are dispensed as tablets but administered as a solution after being dissolved in water.
A specified amount of a medication to be taken at one time. E.g. 2 tablets.
A SNOMED CT code that represents the dispensing form of a medicine. This indicates how the medicine is packaged or dispensed, rather than how it's administered to the patient.
A schedule of doses of a medicine which includes the dose, frequency and duration. E.g. 2 x 100mg tablets, twice daily, for 14 days.
A SNOMED CT code that indicates a possible way a medicine can be administered to a patient. A VMP can have multiple possible routes of administration, such as both intramuscular and intravenous routes.
A dm+d-specific code that combines both the form and route information for a medicine. For example, solution.oral would be used for a soluble tablet that is taken orally.
A lightly processed version of the raw quantity reported in the SCMD. Read more about how it is generated here.
A dataset containing information on the quantity of medicines and devices issued by individual NHS Trusts in England. Read more about it here.
SNOMED CT (Systematized Nomenclature of Medicine - Clinical Terms) is a structured vocabulary for recording information in patient records, mandated for use by all NHS healthcare providers in England for capturing clinical information.
Represents the amount of active ingredient in a medicinal product. Can be expressed as a single value (numerator only) or as a ratio (numerator/denominator) for solutions or concentrations. Each strength value has associated units of measure. For example, 500mg for a tablet, or 50mg/1ml for a solution.
Refers to a single measured quantity of medicine that is packaged and ready for patient administration. E.g, a tablet. Read more about it here.
One of 3 possible forms for the unit dose: Discrete (for countable units like tablets), Continuous (for measurable quantities like liquids), or Not applicable (for devices like catheters where the concept of a dose isn't relevant).
A numeric value indicating the amount of a medicine in a unit dose.
The unit of measure for the unit dose form size.
The unit of measure for the unit dose. Examples include, vial, tablet and pre-filled syringe.
A class within the dm+d representing specific medicinal products with defined forms and strengths. VMPs contain various attributes including dose form and unit dose measurements, and link to other dm+d classes for additional information. The SCMD is reported at this level of the dm+d.
A class within the dm+d containing detailed information about the ingredients present in a VMP. It includes strength information through a numerator (single value) and potentially a denominator (for solutions/concentrations), along with their respective units of measure.
The highest level of the dm+d hierarchy, representing an abstract concept of medical substances or devices without specifying strength or form. A single VTM can be associated with many VMPs and can represent single substances or combinations of substances.