Prescribing, Dispensing & Financial Management Services (PDFM)

The single point of access for receiving and accessing a range of reports for PCT, SHA and National users from the PPA website, www.ppa.nhs.uk

The Prescribing Toolkit

The Prescribing Toolkit enables users to compare their prescribing performance against other prescribing organisations using predefined drug lists and indicators.

This service is available to the following authorised users for performance management purposes:

• Department of Health (DH)
  
• Strategic Health Authorities (SHA)
  
• Primary Care Trusts (PCT)
  
• National Institute of Clinical Excellence (NICE)
  
• Commotion for Healthcare Audit and Inspection (CHAI)
  
• National Prescribing Centre (NPC)
  
• Prescribing Support Unit (PSU).

Data is updated on a quarterly basis and is available for the previous thirty six months data. Annual reports are provided which compare the latest financial year with the previous two years. Quarterly reports are also provided which compare the latest quarter with the equivalent quarters in the previous two years.

Information is available at a variety of levels: -

• Practice
  
• Primary Care Trust
  
• Strategic Health Authority.

Data is presented in both tabular and graphical formats to provide the following:

• Potential Generic Savings
  This shows the potential saving of prescribing generically as opposed to prescribing proprietary products.
  
  
• Specialist Drugs
  This shows the costs for a pre-defined list of drugs.
  
  
• Prescribing Indicators
  This shows performance according to a number of pre-defined indicators.
  
  
• Cost Comparators
  This compares the cost of drugs prescribed according to a number of pre-defined comparators.

• Volume Comparators
  This compares the volume of drugs prescribed according to a number of pre-defined comparators.
  
  
• Nurse Prescribing Indicators
  This provides information on the cost of prescribing from the District Nurse and Health Visitor Nurse Prescribers' Formulary and Nurse Prescribers' Extended Formulary, according to a number of pre-defined indicators.
  
• CHAI Prescribing Indicators
  These provide information to PCTs allowing them to measure their performance against CHAI prescribing targets. More information on the CHAI indicators and ratings is available on www.ratings.chi.nhs.uk.
  
• Enteral Feeds Comparator
  This has been introduced as a pilot to monitor expenditure on enteral feed preparations. This pilot uses data from the period Jan-Mar 2003.

For each of the above a user can also view:

• where applicable, drug list at individual presentation level
• where applicable, the prescribing measures weightings applied (1997 or 2001), e.g.
  
  • Prescribing Units (PUs)
    
• ASTRO PUs - Age, Sex and Temporary Resident Originated Prescribing Units
  
• STAR PUs - Specific Therapeutic group Age-sex Related Prescribing Units
  
• Nurse Prescribing Formulary PUs.

Two National bodies provide professional input:

• the Prescribing Indicator National Group (define prescribing indicators, potential generic savings and specialist drugs reports)

• the Prescribing Support Unit (defines comparators).