Hospital Medications - FOI Response Register

This request is for aggregated medicines usage data.

The request is for all medicines issued by hospital pharmacy for inpatient use in wards and clinics, via homecare services, at discharge, outpatient and pass prescriptions.

1. Please could you provide a report from CMM HEPMA containing data against the following fields, in .csv format, for each month, covering the most recent available data month and any previous available months (up to 13 if available)

I understand that the following fields are likely to be available for reporting:

issue_year, issue_month, location, drugfull, drug_packsize, lnkdid, lnkdpz, quantity_container, quantity_doseunits, container_returns, doseunits_returns

See attached file

2. Please include totals for all dispensed products, including any details of transactions relating to returns which should be discounted from the totals.

See attached file

Notes:

• Inkdid and Inkdpz fields have not been included in the data as, when considered in the context of other information likely to be available, such data could lead to identification of individual patients and/or result in substantial prejudice to the commercial interests of suppliers.

As such, and in accordance with FOISA s 16(1), NHS Shetland confirms that it holds the information requested but that it is exempt from disclosure under:

• FOISA s 38(1)(b) as read with s 38 (2A) as the information constitutes personal data and disclosure would breach the confidentiality of the data subjects.
• FOISA s 33(1) or the disclosure would, or would be likely to, result in substantial prejudice to the commercial interests of suppliers. NHS Shetland considers that the risk that suppliers would be discouraged from dealing with NHS Shetland if they feared that disclosure of information that may damage them commercially   outweighs the public interest in disclosing this information. This is because suppliers being discourage may lead to less favourable pricing / terms for NHS Shetland and subsequent increased cost to the public purse.

• The fields “quantity_container, quantity_doseunits, container_returns, doseunit_returns” have been combined in the field “Net_Issues_As_Dose_Units”. This gives all issues inclusive of returns made within the time period of the request
• The field “DoseUnit_Definition” has been provided, which advises what 1 unit count under “Net_Issues_As_Dose_Units” refers to systematically, which differs from drug to drug depending on file build
• Any information relating to patient-specific transaction types has been removed from “drug_packsize” as this carries a high risk of identifying individual patients. As such, and in accordance with FOISA s 16(1), NHS Shetland confirms that it holds the information requested but that it is exempt from disclosure under FOISA s 38(1)(b) as read with s 38 (2A) as the information constitutes personal data and disclosure would breach the confidentiality of the data subjects.
• Where we have provided <10 answers, this is because NHS Shetland considers that providing more detailed answers carries a high risk of identifying individuals, particularly given the specific medications, time periods and population size covered by NHS Shetland. As such, and in accordance with FOISA s 16(1), NHS Shetland confirms that it holds the information requested but that it is exempt from disclosure under FOISA s 38(1)(b) as read with s 38 (2A) as the information constitutes personal data and disclosure would breach the confidentiality of the data subjects.