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Published 4 June 2026.
Publication
Prescription Cost Analysis England 2025/26 - statistical summary narrative (HTML)Background information and methodology note (HTML)Pre-release access list (HTML)
Summary
Prescription Cost Analysis (PCA) provides details of the costs and volumes of all prescriptions dispensed in the community in England. Data relating to medicines supplied as the Pharmacy First Clinical Pathways advanced service have been included in this publication.
The Prescription Cost Analysis (PCA) publication is an accredited official statistic release. Accredited official statistic status means that PCA meets the highest standard of trustworthiness, quality, and public value, and complies with all aspects of the Code of Practice for Statistics.
The designation of this publication as an accredited official statistic release was confirmed in May 2021 following an assessment by the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR). Read more about the confirmation and assessment of the PCA statistics on the Office for Statistics Regulation website.
Key findings
In England in 2025/26:
- 1.30 billion prescription items were dispensed in the community in England at a cost of £11.6 billion
- the number of items dispensed in the community in increased by 3% from 2024/25 while costs increased by 4%
- the most dispensed chemical substance was Atorvastatin, a drug used to lower cholesterol and prevent heart disease, with 78 million items
Resource list
Summary tables
These datasets provide annual summaries, by calendar year or financial year, of the costs and volumes of all prescriptions dispensed in the community in England. The data are available at levels of the British National Formulary (BNF) down to SNOMED code, and at multiple geographic levels.
National summary tables - financial year (Excel: 15.8MB)National summary tables - calendar year (Excel: 15.8MB)NHS region summary tables - financial year (Excel: 70.6MB)NHS region summary tables - calendar year (Excel: 70.9MB)ICB summary tables - financial year (Excel: 250.5MB)ICB summary tables - calendar year (Excel: 250.4MB)
Additional analysis
This dataset provides breakdowns across multiple dimensions, including BNF chapters, sections, chemical substances, presentations, preparation classes, and charge status. The dataset covers trends over time, top‑ranking medicines by cost and volume, changes in prescribing patterns, and measures such as cost per item, items per person, and generic vs proprietary dispensing.
Additional tables (Excel: 119KB)
Management information
This data has been released to complement the Prescription Cost Analysis statistics, but is management information and is not an official statistic.
This dataset provides breakdowns of the costs and volumes of all prescriptions dispensed in the community in England broken down by exemption category. It also covers an estimation of the prescription charges that patients would have paid if they did not hold a valid exemption at the point of dispensing from an NHSBSA administered exemption scheme.
Exemption category management information (Excel: 32KB)
Reproducible analytical pipeline (RAP)
This publication has been produced using a RAP as part of our commitment to transparency and open code. You can view the code used in this RAP on our Prescription Cost Analysis GitHub repository.
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Responsible statistician: Graham Platten