Publication on the National Therapeutic Indicators 2012: FOI release

Information requested

• Full detail of the commissioning, review and sign off process that informed the publication of the National Therapeutic Indicators 2012.
• Whose decision it was to publish the final version and the processes followed up until that point.

Response

All of the information you have requested is available within the report ‘National Therapeutic Indicators – 2012 – Baseline data’, and we can confirm the process of development and authorisation.

The report was authored by Dr Simon Hurding and Sean MacBride-Stewart in their roles within the Quality and Efficiency Support Team in the Health and Social Care Directorate at the Scottish
Government.

It was endorsed and authorised by the Chief Pharmaceutical Officer and Deputy Director of Primary Care at that time, Bill Scott and Frank Strang respectively.

The data in the report was from the Prescribing Information System for Scotland (PRISMS), which was maintained by the Information Services Division (ISD), now Public Health Scotland (PHS). The report contains an update to the baseline data provided for the previous financial year, and also confirms the finalised set of ten National Therapeutic Indicators (NTIs) for 2012.

Previous prescribing indicators had been in use by boards, however the development of this set of NTIs were developed by Scottish Government together with NHS Scotland. Thirty indicators were developed as proposals. These were consulted on, for example at the National Prescribing Efficiency & Productivity meeting on the 27th June 2011 and further discussions with Boards. NHS Scotland and expert groups including the Scottish Prescribing Advisers Association were involved in the selection of the final ten, having considered the data generated by these indicators.

The NTIs have continued to be developed, and the current suite of NTIs are available on the PHS website at: https://publichealthscotland.scot/publications/national-therapeutic-indicatorsdatavisualisation/national-therapeutic-indicators-data-visualisation-data-to-december-2023/. The data is updated quarterly, enabling benchmarking at board and practice level and are open access improving transparency.

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