electronic Prescribing & Financial Information for Practices (ePFIP).

Prescribing Monitoring Document

-	Header Information
-	Report Content
	- Expenditure
	- Breakdown by major BNF group
-	Annual Profile of Cumulative Expenditure

The Prescribing Monitoring Document (PMD) shows the cost of prescribing to enable management of the drugs element of unified budgets. A new PMD report is produced each month, and the data presented is based on a single month of prescribing. PMD within the electronic Prescribing & Financial Information for Practices service is a 2-page report, which is suitable for printing. The first page is a Practice Statement (an Annual Return in March) the second, an Annual Profile of Cumulative Expenditure.

Header Information

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The header information on the Statement and Annual Return contains:

Title
For months other than March, the title of 'Practice Prescribing Monthly Statement' appears, while for March the title appears as 'Practice Prescribing Monthly Return'. If the practice is a PMS Pilot, this will be indicated here with a slightly different title to that of a practice: 'PMS Pilot Monthly Statement'.
Reporting Period
For months other than March, this will contain a statement number and a date. Statement refers to the financial year, so statement number 1 refers to April, number 2 to May, and so on. The calendar month and year that the statement refers to is also displayed here. For March, the text 'Annual Return, March <year>' appears instead.
Practice Information
For the practice to whom the PMD report relates, the practice name appears here along with the practice code and the practice's address.
Practice Parent
The name of the PCT to which the practice belongs is displayed here along with the PCT's code.

This section shows expenditure against the target budget. The following details are provided:

Target budget for the current year
The prescribing amount allocated for the current financial year (April - March). If your practice moves to a new PCT mid-year and you retain your patients, you will also retain your existing budget as this has been set according to the needs of the practice if your target budget needs to change mid-year, these changes need to be agreed with your PCT. If your practice splits, the budgets will need to be agreed with your PCT and will normally be prorated with list sizes.
Expenditure for the current month (rounded to the nearest £)
Note: some of the costs incurred for the dispensing of prescriptions are excluded from the expenditure figures; these are professional fees, on-cost, oxygen cylinder delivery service and oxygen concentrator services.
Cumulative Expenditure (rounded to the nearest £)
The expense incurred by the practice for the current financial year to date.
Forecast Out-turn
This is a forecast of the expected annual expenditure. This can be compared with the target budget to establish whether the practice is on target for expenditure, for example; if the Forecast Out-turn is greater than the target budget, and if current expenditure levels are maintained, the target budget will be exceeded at the end of the financial year. This figure does not appear on the Annual Return or the statements for April and May

For further information about Forecast Out-turn, including how it is calculated, see the Prescribing/PMD Technical Guide.
Total Annual overspend OR Total Annual underspend
This figure only appears on the end of financial year Annual Return for March. This is the difference between the total expenditure for the year, and the target budget for the year.

This section gives a breakdown for each of the current national top six British National Formulary therapeutic groups. In addition there are separate breakdowns for dressings and appliances. The remaining chapters are grouped together in the 'All other' category. The following details are provided for each category:

Expenditure for current month
Expenditure of this group as a percentage of combined groups' expenditure for this month
Cumulative expenditure (i.e. expenditure in the current financial year to date)
Cumulative expenditure of this group as a percentage of combined groups' cumulative expenditure

From this table of information you can see where your expenditure is incurred and how it is distributed between the therapeutic groups. If you require a further breakdown of the prescribing in any of the BNF chapters, then this information may be obtained from the Practice Prescribing Detailed Information and Prescribing Analysis Report.

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Pie charts representing this month's and the year to date's expenditure are shown.

This section of the statement gives monthly expenditure details for the whole of the previous year (April to March) plus details for the current year to date. The information provided is cumulative. For example, April contains April details only, May contains April's and May's. It shows expenditure to date for each of the months. The header information displayed is the same as that for page 1, except the title will always display 'Annual Profile of Cumulative Expenditure'. The following details are provided for each month:

Basic price
The cumulative expenditure for net ingredient cost
Discount
This is calculated from the basic price, using the latest available national average discount percentage
Container Cost
The amount paid for container costs for items prescribed by the practice
Actual cost
The basic price less the national average discount amount calculated plus the container cost.
Percentage of amount
The percentage of the target budget expended up to and including that month. If the target budget is exceeded then this value will be greater than 100%.

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A bar chart representing the annual profile of expenditure graphically is shown. Each month has three entries; expenditure for this month in the previous year, expenditure for this month in the current year (blank if the current month is in the future) and target expenditure for this month, calculated according to the national trend of proportionate spend.