FAQs

The figures on PharmData are from official NHS sources, and are the most recent data that is available. For NHS payments to pharmacies for prescriptions and services, these will typically be 3 months behind the current date, since this is when pharmacies are paid for those. However, this does vary slightly between the different nations. Additionally, Scotland only releases data quarterly, so the figures can be up to 6 months behind the current date.

The most recent data that we have available is shown below:

• Prescription items and NHS services:
• England: December 2023
• England flu data: January 2024
• Northern Ireland: February 2024
• Scotland: December 2023
• Wales: February 2024
• GP list sizes:
• England: September 2023
• Northern Ireland: January 2024
• Scotland: April 2024
• Wales: September 2023

For market share information, some GP surgeries on PharmData will show as having dispensed some of their own prescriptions, e.g. Atherstone Surgery.

The GP surgery is a dispensing doctors site, with an in-house dispensary serving some of the surgery's patients. They will be dispensing prescriptions in a similar way to a pharmacy. For more information, see the Dispensing Doctors' Association website.

You can download all of your VAT invoices from the settings page.

Adding pharmacies to your watchlist means that you can compare your pharmacy to them, as either a one-to-one comparison or on your customised monthly report.

How to add a pharmacy to your watchlist:

1. If you haven't already done so, make sure to sign in to your account or create a free PharmData account.
2. Use the search bar at the top of the page to search for a pharmacy. You can start typing the pharmacy name, location, postcode or ODS code to find it. Then, click on that pharmacy to visit it's profile page on PharmData.
3. On the competitor pharmacy's profile page, to the right of their name, click the blue "Add To Watchlist" button.
4. If you'd like to do a one-to-one comparison, click "My Account" at the top of the page, and then "My Pharmacy". On your pharmacy's profile page, in the space where there would normally be the blue "Add To Watchlist" button is a dropdown list of your competitors. Select one of the competitors and you'll see their figures overlaid against your own pharmacy's, allowing an easy comparison. For a more comprehensive comparison, view your pharmacy monthly report.

On PharmData, for English pharmacies, we display the number of prescription items done by the pharmacy each month as 2 different values:

• Items, which is the number of prescription items paid by NHSBSA.
• Professional fees, which is the total of the number of fees for prescription items paid by NHSBSA.

These 2 figures represent different things. For example, a prescription for 24 x 200ml bottles of Fortisip mixed flavours will count as 1 item. However, if the pharmacy dispenses and claims for 5 different flavours, then this will count as 5 professional fees. The total number of items will therefore generally be less than the number of professional fees.

By default, we use the items figure to compare different pharmacies, because this is a more accurate representation of the number of prescriptions dispensed and therefore more useful for comparing how many patients or dispensing is done by different pharmacies. On a pharmacy's profile page on PharmData, you can see figures for professional fees by clicking on the "Items" toggle above the graph of item numbers over time.

Yes; we provide additional dashboards and reports for those people or organisations who have more than one pharmacy. You can sign up for a group dashboard online or contact us and we'll set up your dashboard.

Pricing (ex VAT) for the group dashboard is based on how many pharmacies are included:

• £3 per pharmacy per month
• £2.80 per pharmacy if 100+ branches
• £2.50 per pharmacy if 500+ branches
• £2.20 per pharmacy if 750+ branches
• £2 per pharmacy if 900+ branches
• £1 per pharmacy if 4,000+ branches

If you have a group account on PharmData, then you can add branches to your account to access more reports and insights.

• Visit the set up dashboard page to set up a group account or edit your branches list.
• Add branches to an area by clicking the pencil icon next to an area, then click Add new branch and search for the pharmacy by ODS code or postcode; select the pharmacy from the list and then (optionally) specify a Branch name/ID.

You can also create accounts for your branches and area managers so that they can also access PharmData and receive email reports:

• Visit the settings page and scroll down to the Additional Accounts section.
• Click Add New User and fill out the email address and password for the account that is to be created. If you're creating a branch account, then also specify the ODS code; if you're creating an area manager account, then instead set the User Type to Admin.
• You can also create branch accounts in bulk by clicking Add Bulk Users and copying in columns from a branch spreadsheet.

Yes; we can provide a custom report in a spreadsheet format for specific data requests. Custom reports are priced at £250 + VAT. Previous custom reports have included:

• List of 100 hour pharmacies in England (name, address, owner details) with average monthly dispensed items, nearest competitor and average monthly dispensed items of nearest competitor
• List of Distance Selling Pharmacies in England including name, address, owner details, average monthly dispensed items, average monthly services figures
• List of pharmacies and average monthly GP CPCS consultations
• List of pharmacies which dispense a specific formulation of medicine in a specified month, with number of prescriptions and total volume of that medicine

If you're interested in requesting a custom report, please contact us. Once you let us know your requirements, we can produce a free sample report which includes the first 10 rows of the data, and an indication of how many rows will be in the full report. If you confirm that you'd like to proceed, then we supply the full report and invoice by email.

If you've already set up a subscription to PharmData and wish to change the subscription to a different bank account, then you have two options:

• You can contact the support team of our payment processor, Gocardless, on 020 7183 8674 and they'll be able to transfer your subscription to a different bank account.
• You can cancel your existing subscription from the settings page and then when the PharmData website prompts you to set up a new subscription, you can sign up using the new bank account details.