Project #205 : Short data report: Recording of medicines prescribed outside primary care in GP EHR data

Medicines are sometimes prescribed outside of primary care, or not through the NHS. This may include in hospitals, by dentists, or by private prescribers. It is important that GPs are aware of which medicines patients are taking, as it may impact on their care. But, it is unknown how GPs are actually recording this in patient medical records. This work will investigate which fields in GP EHR data are being used to capture prescribing outside of primary care.

Using data from 2019 onwards, we will identify which fields contain information about medicines prescribed outside of primary care, and measure how frequently it happens overall and for different medicines classes. We will also do this for a range of case studies, for medicine classes known to have high rates of prescribing outside of primary care. This can provide a template for similar investigations for other medicine classes of interest in the future.