NHS Pharmacy First Scotland
1 April 2021 - 30 September 2023

About this release

This release by Public Health Scotland (PHS) presents information on the number and characteristics of patients accessing NHS Pharmacy First Scotland and Community Pharmacy Unscheduled Supply (CPUS) services. CPUS data has been added to this release for the first time. Information on planned developments can be found in the background document.

Main points

Pharmacy First Scotland

• 30% of the Scottish population (1,616,993) used Pharmacy First Scotland in the most recent 12 months reported (October 2022 to September 2023).
• The number of people using Pharmacy First Scotland, at least once each quarter, increased by 31% in the two years from 464,363 in July - September 2021 to 609,287 in July - September 2023. This trend can be seen in both males and females, and across all age groups and deprivation quintiles.
• Of the 609,287 people accessing the service in the most recent reported quarter, 62% were female.
• The highest rate of Pharmacy First use was in the 0-9 years age group (179 per 1,000 population in the most recent quarter). This reflects previous trends.
• Use of Pharmacy First Scotland can be seen across all levels of deprivation in the population. In the most recent quarter reported, 44% of patients lived in the two most deprived quintiles.

A graph showing the increase in number of patients using Pharmacy First and Unscheduled Supply services from April 2021 to September 2023

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Trend in number of patients per quarter using Pharmacy First and CPUS - April 2021 - September 2023

Community Pharmacy Urgent Supply (CPUS)

• 11% of the Scottish population (621,330) used CPUS in the most recent 12 months reported (October 2022 to September 2023).
• The number of people using CPUS at least once in a quarter increased by 29% in the two years from 165,548 in July - September 2021 to 213,974 in July - September 2023.
• Of the 213,974 people using CPUS in the most recent reported quarter, 57% were female.
• CPUS utilisation increases in older age groups. Nine patients aged 0-9 per 1,000 population used the service in the most recent quarter reported, compared with 124 per 1,000 population among the 90+ age group.
• As with Pharmacy First, use of CPUS can be seen across all deprivation quintiles, with 45% of people using the service in the most recent quarter in the two most deprived quintiles.

Background

Further information on NHS Pharmacy First Scotland can be found on the NHS Inform website and information on Community Pharmacy Unscheduled Supply on the Community Pharmacy Scotland website.  More detailed information on the statistics presented can be found in the Background and Data Quality documents.

Further information

The next release of this publication will be August 2024.