Prescription Cost Analysis
The Business Services Organisation (BSO) is the provider of the data. Prescription Cost Analysis (PCA) data is obtained from the BSO’s prescribing and dispensing information systems. The data covers all prescriptions including dental, those from out of hours surgeries, non-medical (ie Nurse, Pharmacist, Physiotherapist and Optometrist), hospice or those prescriptions prescribed in other parts of the UK but dispensed in NI and submitted to BSO for payment.
The data includes all prescribed medicines, dressings and appliances that are dispensed each month. If a patient does not take a prescription to a dispenser and get it provided to them, then the data will not be included in the dataset. Private prescriptions are not included in the data. Post-payment adjustments are included.
For some years, PCA data has been supplied in two versions, one at Northern Ireland level and another broken down by Local Commissioning Group (LCG). Where the information is supplied at LCG level, the data will cover all prescriptions, (including those from out of hours surgeries and non medical prescribers employed and based within a GP practice) with the exception of dental prescriptions, hospice items and those prescriptions prescribed in other parts of the UK but dispensed in NI and submitted to BSO for payment.
For the first time the PCA now includes a HTML format report, which provides a high-level overview including key trends, and a complementary dashboard.
The release of the data is dependent on the completion of pharmacy payment processes but will be published here on or before 1st March each year.
In 2022, the PCA was approved as an Accredited Official Statistic by the UK Statistics Authority.
Current Annual Publication
Date published: 27th February 2025
 PCA Report 2024 |
 PCA 2024 |
| PCA 2024 – Breakdown by LCG |
PCA Dashboard
This dashboard brings together multiple years of data to help make trend analysis easier and incorporates drill down features to facilitate analysis at a more granular level. In addition, in order to provide consistent comparisons across years, the data within it will be refreshed annually to ensure product information reflects current categorisation i.e. the most up to date product name, chemical name, British National Formulary (BNF) Chapter / Section / Paragraph / Sub Paragraph. This is not the case with the standalone reports, which use the classification at the point in time at which they are released, and hence represent the official statistics for that year. For this reason, the data contained within the dashboard can differ slightly from previous years PCA publications.
| PCA Dashboard 2024 |
Date of next release: February 2026
The statistics will be released on this page at 9.30am. If you have issues accessing the information it can also be found at gov.uk.
Annual Datasets
Please note that due to the implementation of a new website, some links in historical reports may be out of date. Users are advised to use the links in the most recent report.
If you are a user of the Prescription Cost Analysis publication and would like to receive regular updates on future publications or provide feedback on how the publication could better meet your needs, please email us at info.bso@hscni.net
Policy Documentation
A Background Quality Report has been developed to support the publication of BSO Official Statistics.
Attribution Statement
Any party who processes (i.e. copies, publishes, adapts or otherwise uses in any means) the data provided by the Business Services Organisation on this website, covered by the Open Government Licence (OGL), is required to acknowledge the Business Services Organisation as the source of the data in any such processes.