National therapeutic indicators data visualisation
Data to December 2023

About this release

This release by Public Health Scotland (PHS) is an update of the National Therapeutic Indicators (NTIs) for data up to December 2023. The NTIs are used for quality improvement work. The publication presents a visualisation of information by NHS Board, Health and Social Partnership (HSCP), General Practitioner (GP) practice, GP cluster and practice peer group.

Main points

There are currently 61 prescribing indicators detailed in the publication. The example indicator below shows that the number of people prescribed an antidepressant in combination with a long-term benzodiazepine or z-drug (>8 weeks) per 1,000 list size has stayed consistent, with a small decrease overall from 11.27 in October-December 2021 to 10.82 in October-December 2023.

A graph showing the number of people prescribed an antidepressant (all) in combination with a long-term benzodiazepine or z-drug (>8 weeks) per 1,000 list size. Data is broken down by health board and three-time periods; October to December 2021, October to December 2022, and October to December 2023. The number is consistent across time periods and geographies.

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Environmental: Pressurized metered dose inhalers (pMDI) as a proportion of all respiratory inhalers (items)

Background

The data visualisation allows a more in-depth and interactive visual analysis of the current National Therapeutic Indicators paper publication, published by the Effective Prescribing and Therapeutics Division of the Scottish Government 

The visualisation includes a presentation of variation and prescribing trends, and comparisons of HSCP, GP clusters and practice peer groups. This update also provides a practice level dashboard showing comparisons between indicators, HSCP trends and an NHS Board indicator summary.

This interactive visualisation allows the user to look at the variation in prescribing practice between GP practices and should be useful to both prescribers and associated prescribing staff who want an 'easy to access' visualisation view of prescribing data.

This is the latest release of the data visualisation and further developments will follow, as prioritised by a steering group for this work which is commissioned by the Effective Prescribing and Therapeutics division of the Scottish Government. The update includes expanded detail for a number of indicators to help aid clinicians and prescribing advisers.

Further information

Further information is available from the Prescribing webpages.

The next release of this publication will be May 2024.