Published 26 October 2023
Summary
This publication aims to describe the prescribing of hormone replacement therapy (HRT) medications in a primary care setting in England that are dispensed in the community. This does not include data on medicines used in secondary care, prisons, or issued by a private prescriber.
This publication is an official statistic in development which has been released to support the work being undertaken by the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC), NHS England, and HRT suppliers.
It's intended to provide a national view of prescribing of hormone replacement therapy for the use of policy makers, the general public and other users, and to be available to answer any high-level questions in this area.
This release includes metrics on the volume and cost of prescribing of hormone replacement therapy and the number of patients receiving prescribing for these drugs. Various demographic breakdowns, including by a measure of deprivation, and a geographical breakdown by Integrated Care Boards (ICBs) are also included.
Key findings
In England in 2022-23:
- there were 11 million items for HRT prescribed in England, a 47% increase from 2021-22
- there were an estimated 2.3 million identified patients that were prescribed HRT items, a 29% increase from 2021-22
- more than twice as many patients were prescribed HRT items in the least deprived areas compared to the most deprived
- the proportion of HRT prescribing that is exempt from prescription charges has increased from April 2023, reversing a downwards trend from 2015-16 onwards. This coincides with the introduction of the HRT PPC.
Changes to these statistics
For this release, we’ve changed the methodology around the drugs included as HRT items. This release includes all drugs that are covered by the HRT Prescription Pre-payment Certificate (PPC), introduced in April 2023.
We’re interested in any feedback about the publication or these changes, which you can send by using our official statistics feedback survey.
Resource list
Hormone Replacement Therapy - England April 2015 to June 2023 (HTML)
Financial year summary tables (Excel: 276KB)Monthly summary tables (Excel: 1.8MB)
HRT Drug list - appendix A (Excel: 22KB)
Background information and methodology note (HTML)
Pre-release access list (HTML)
Management information
This data has been released to complement the Hormone Replacement Therapy statistics, but is management information and is not an official statistic.
Exemption category management information (Excel: 234KB)
Feedback
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Contact us
If you have any questions, comments, or would like more information you can email statistics@nhsbsa.nhs.uk.
Responsible statistician: Kirsty Gray