💊 OpenPrescribing NHS Spend Scraper

🚀 Track NHS England drug spend month by month. One search for "atorvastatin" returns five years of national spend, 4.3 million items a month at the peak.

🕒 Last updated: 2026-06-02 · 📊 13 fields per row · 60 months of history · drug name or BNF code input

Pull NHS England prescribing spend from OpenPrescribing, the open analytics platform built on official prescribing data. Search a drug by name or pass a BNF code, and get a monthly series of items dispensed, quantity, actual cost in pounds, and cost per item.

Coverage: national NHS England prescribing for any BNF chemical, with the most recent 60 months of data per drug.

🎯 Target Audience	💡 Primary Use Cases
Health policy researchers	Track spend and volume trends
Pharma analysts	Study market size by drug
NHS and ICB teams	Monitor prescribing budgets
Journalists and data scientists	Build prescribing datasets

📋 What the OpenPrescribing NHS Spend Scraper does

• Resolves drug names to their NHS BNF chemical codes.
• Accepts exact BNF codes for precise pulls.
• Returns a monthly national spend series per drug.
• Reports items, quantity, actual cost, and a computed cost per item.
• Covers the most recent 60 months of data.
• Exports to CSV, Excel, JSON, XML, or via API.

🎬 Full Demo (🚧 Coming soon)

⚙️ Input

Field	Type	Description
searchTerms	array	Drug or chemical names to search.
bnfCodes	array	Exact NHS BNF chemical codes.
maxItems	integer	Cap on rows returned. Free plan is limited to 10. Each row is one drug in one month.

Example 1: by drug name

{
  "searchTerms": ["atorvastatin", "metformin"],
  "maxItems": 120
}

Example 2: by exact BNF code

{
  "searchTerms": [],
  "bnfCodes": ["0407010H0"],
  "maxItems": 60
}

⚠️ Good to Know: data is national NHS England spend per BNF chemical, with the latest 60 months available per drug. A drug name can map to more than one chemical across BNF sections, so each chemical is returned separately. The searchTerm field is empty for rows pulled from an exact BNF code.

📊 Output

Each record contains the following fields:

Field	Description
💊 drugName	Chemical name
🔢 bnfCode	NHS BNF chemical code
📂 section	BNF section
🏛 orgName	Organisation (NHS England)
📅 date	Month (first of month)
📦 items	Items dispensed
🔬 quantity	Total quantity
💷 actualCost	Actual cost in pounds
🧮 costPerItem	Cost per item in pounds
🔗 spendingUrl	OpenPrescribing chemical page
🔎 searchTerm	Query that surfaced this drug
🕒 scrapedAt	Collection timestamp
❌ error	Error message, null on success

Real sample records:

{
  "drugName": "Paracetamol",
  "bnfCode": "0407010H0",
  "section": "4.7: Analgesics",
  "orgName": "NHS England",
  "date": "2021-04-01",
  "items": 1364878,
  "quantity": 206674783,
  "actualCost": 6541946.78,
  "costPerItem": 4.79,
  "spendingUrl": "https://openprescribing.net/chemical/0407010H0/",
  "error": null
}

{
  "drugName": "Atorvastatin",
  "bnfCode": "0212000B0",
  "section": "2.12: Lipid-regulating drugs",
  "orgName": "NHS England",
  "date": "2021-04-01",
  "items": 4330073,
  "quantity": 132374000,
  "actualCost": 7303071.63,
  "costPerItem": 1.69,
  "spendingUrl": "https://openprescribing.net/chemical/0212000B0/",
  "error": null
}

{
  "drugName": "Atorvastatin",
  "bnfCode": "0212000B0",
  "section": "2.12: Lipid-regulating drugs",
  "orgName": "NHS England",
  "date": "2021-10-01",
  "items": 4322548,
  "actualCost": 5911025.92,
  "costPerItem": 1.37,
  "spendingUrl": "https://openprescribing.net/chemical/0212000B0/",
  "error": null
}

✨ Why choose this Actor

• Name or code. Search by drug name or pull an exact BNF chemical.
• Ready trends. A clean monthly series, one row per month.
• Computed cost per item. Spot price changes at a glance.
• Official basis. Built on NHS England prescribing data via OpenPrescribing.
• Ready to export. CSV, Excel, JSON, XML, or API, with a clean table view.

📈 How it compares to alternatives

	OpenPrescribing NHS Spend Scraper	Manual API calls	Generic web scrapers
Drug name to code resolution	✅	⚠️ Manual	❌
Monthly national series	✅	⚠️	❌
Computed cost per item	✅	❌	❌
Multi-drug runs	✅	⚠️	⚠️
Export to CSV/Excel/JSON/XML	✅	❌	⚠️

🚀 How to use

1. Create a free Apify account using this sign-up link.
2. Open the OpenPrescribing NHS Spend Scraper.
3. Enter searchTerms or bnfCodes, and set maxItems.
4. Click Start and watch the dataset fill in real time.
5. Export your results as CSV, Excel, JSON, or XML, or pull them via API.

💼 Business use cases

📊 Market sizing

Goal	How
Size a drug market	Sum actual cost across months
Compare volumes	Rank by items dispensed

💷 Budget and policy

Goal	How
Track spend	Follow the monthly cost series
Spot price moves	Watch cost per item

🔬 Research

Goal	How
Study uptake	Compare items over time
Build datasets	Pull many drugs at once

📰 Reporting

Goal	How
Tell a story	Chart spend trends
Fact check	Cite official prescribing data

🔌 Automating OpenPrescribing NHS Spend Scraper

Connect this Actor to your stack with Apify integrations: Make, Zapier, Slack, Airbyte, GitHub, and Google Drive. Schedule runs and push fresh prescribing data into spreadsheets, databases, or alerts.

🌟 Beyond business use cases

• Research: study NHS prescribing patterns over time.
• Personal: explore how much the NHS spends on common drugs.
• Non-profit: support health transparency projects.
• Experimentation: build healthcare analytics dashboards.

🤖 Ask an AI assistant

Paste your dataset into ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, or Copilot and ask for the fastest growing drugs, biggest spend, or cost per item trends.

❓ Frequently Asked Questions

1. Do I need an API key? No. The Actor uses the open OpenPrescribing data.

2. What spend is covered? National NHS England prescribing spend per BNF chemical.

3. How much history is available? The most recent 60 months per drug.

4. How do I target an exact drug? Pass its BNF chemical code in bnfCodes.

5. Why does one name return several rows? A name can map to more than one BNF chemical across sections.

6. What is cost per item? Actual cost divided by items dispensed, in pounds.

7. What export formats are supported? CSV, Excel, JSON, XML, and API.

8. Can I pull several drugs at once? Yes. Add multiple search terms or BNF codes.

9. Can I run it on a schedule? Yes, with Apify Schedules and integrations.

10. Is there a free option? Yes. Free runs are limited to 10 items as a preview. Paid plans unlock up to 1,000,000.

🔌 Integrate with any app

Use the Apify API, webhooks, and 5,000-plus integrations to push OpenPrescribing data into Make, Zapier, Google Sheets, Airtable, databases, and more.

🔗 Recommended Actors

• openFDA Drug Labels Scraper
• DailyMed FDA Labels Scraper
• NADAC Drug Prices Scraper
• UK CQC Care Quality Scraper
• EMA Medicines Scraper

💡 Pro Tip: browse the complete ParseForge collection.

🆘 Need Help? Open our contact form

⚠️ Disclaimer: independent tool, not affiliated with OpenPrescribing, the Bennett Institute, or the NHS. Data is provided by the OpenPrescribing open data platform.