OpenPrescribing - new measures now available

We’ve been spending some time at OpenPrescribing designing a set of new measures to identify interesting variations in prescribing behaviour across the country.

We’ve talked to people from CCGs, and have looked (via Freedom of Information requests) at a number of CCG schemes for improving prescribing, and have come up with a number of areas that we think are important.

Some, like the opioids measure, are important for both cost and clinical reasons. Others, such as the glaucoma measure, show where there is prescribing by brand, which we don’t think is necessary. We also have measures, like generic diltiazem, which show where we think there is prescribing which doesn’t meet national guidance on how they should be prescribed.

We also taken the opportunity to “retire” a number of our original measures, as clinical guidance and evidence changes over time.

You can find all the measures at CCG and practice level, and also look at all CCGs in the country for each individual measure.