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Case study

Harnessing the power of NHS prescriptions data for care home patients: the potential and possibilities

The NHSBSA Data Science and Advanced Analytics team deliver actionable insights from data through innovation, experimentation and collaboration. These insights drive policy, decision making and efficiencies across the NHSBSA and wider health and social care system.

The team undertook an exciting project to identify care home patients in NHS prescriptions data through innovative data linkage work. This has enabled them to estimate the primary care prescribing that is taking place in care homes for the first time. This addresses a key gap in knowledge and could inform the use and management of medicines in care homes to improve health outcomes, the quality of care and ensure value.

The team used cutting edge reporting methods to create an interactive insight report. This provides readers with high level insights around the profile of care home patients receiving prescriptions, prescribing volumes and costs and commonly prescribed medicines. It also enables the readers to further explore the data at various levels.

They have also made the full methodology and code openly available which provides opportunity for review, engenders transparency, and encourages reuse, collaboration, and further development. The team have also created an R package for others to use when matching addresses, with integration to the Ordnance Survey API.

The work has received positive feedback about its value and potential, for example:


“The work to develop a methodology to identify care home patients and understand prescribing trends in care homes will directly feed into the Enhanced Health in Care Homes dashboard work. We are keen to incorporate it to help us understand variation and drive-up quality of care in care homes”.

Enhanced Health in Care Homes, NHS England


“Identifying care prescribing at care home level will help us optimise medicines for some of our most vulnerable patients. By taking a population health approach we can risk stratify patients and understand the impact of interventions. I’m really excited about the work the NHSBSA are doing; this is good for systems, clinical teams and ultimately patients”.

Senior Pharmacist, NHS England


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