Primary Care Medicines (PCM) Dataset#
Last modified: 20 Aug 2025
1. Summary#
Dataset about all prescriptions that have been submitted by prescribers to the NHS Business Services Authority (NHSBSA) for reimbursement purposes. The dataset includes prescriptions issued by pharmacists, dentists and doctors in general practice, community clinics, dentists, hospital clinics and community nursing homes. The prescriptions may have been written in England and dispensed UK-wide or written elsewhere in the UK and dispensed in England.
| Dataset Descriptor | Dataset-specific Information |
|---|---|
| Name of Dataset in TRE | NHSE_PCM |
| Citation (APA) | Data Services, NHS England (NHSE). (2024). NHS England: Primary Care Medicines (PCM). UK Longitudinal Linkage Collaboration (UK LLC). https://doi.org/10.71760/ukllc-dataset-00375-03 |
| Download Citation | Citeproc JSON BibTeX RIS |
| Series | NHS England |
| Owner | NHS England |
| Temporal Coverage in the TRE | 04/2015 - ongoing |
| Geographical Coverage | England |
| Participant Count | 223922 |
| Number of Variables | 57 |
| Number of Observations | 32640281 |
| Key Link | https://digital.nhs.uk/data-and-information/data-tools-and-services/data-services/medicines-dispensed-in-primary-care-nhsbsa-data |
| Keywords | Medicines, Prescriptions |
| Latest Extract Date | 2024-04-26 |
| Specific Restrictions to Data Use | None |
| Build a Data Request | https://explore.ukllc.ac.uk/ |
2. Metrics#
Click on the plus sign to see the number of participants represented in each dataset.
Table 2: Participants from each LPS represented in the PCM dataset in the UK LLC TRE. Note: Individual cohort counts of less than 10 are suppressed to <10 and excluded from total participant counts for datasets.
3. Version History#
| Version | 1 | 2 | 3 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Version Date | 21 Dec 2022 | 13 Apr 2023 | 26 Apr 2024 |
| Number of Variables | 57 | 57 | 57 |
| Number of Observations | 19239373 | 22859974 | 32640281 |
| DOI | 10.71760/ukllc-dataset-00375-01 | 10.71760/ukllc-dataset-00375-02 | 10.71760/ukllc-dataset-00375-03 |
| Change Log | 10.71760/ukllc-dataset-00375-01/activities | 10.71760/ukllc-dataset-00375-02/activities | 10.71760/ukllc-dataset-00375-03/activities |
4. Documentation#
We are currently building a documentation storage system which will host useful documents related to datasets and data owners. We will surface these documents on Guidebook.
5. Useful Syntax#
Below we will include syntax that may be helpful to other researchers in the UK LLC TRE. For longer scripts, we will include a snippet of the code plus a link to the UK LLC GitHub repository where you can find the full scripts.