Items which should not routinely be prescribed in primary care - homeopathy

Below are the database queries which are used to create this measure. These are run against a copy of the BSA prescribing data which we store in Google BigQuery. We're working on making our BigQuery tables publicly available at which point it will be possible to run and modify these queries yourself. But even where code and database queries are not directly useable by others we believe it is always preferable to make them public.

Description Cost of homeopathy per 1000 patients
Why it matters

NHS England guidance states:

Homeopathy seeks to treat patients with highly diluted substances that are administered orally.

During the consultation we received a range of submissions pertaining to homeopathy and it was deemed necessary to have a further review to include the up to date evidence; this was conducted by the Specialist Pharmacy Service. This review found no clear or robust evidence to support the use of homeopathy on the NHS.

NHS England recommend that GPs:

  • Do not initiate.
  • Deprescribe in patients currently prescribed this medicine.
Tags Cost Saving, Efficacy, NHS England - items which should not routinely be prescribed in primary care
Implies cost savings Yes
Authored by richard.croker
Checked by christopher.wood
Last reviewed 2023-09-12
Next review due 2025-09-12
History View change history on GitHub →

Numerator SQL

SELECT
     CAST(month AS DATE) AS month,
     practice AS practice_id,
     SUM(actual_cost) AS numerator
 FROM hscic.normalised_prescribing
 WHERE bnf_code IN ("190203000BBAAA0")
 GROUP BY month, practice_id

Denominator SQL

SELECT
     CAST(month AS DATE) AS month,
     practice AS practice_id,
     SUM(total_list_size / 1000.0) AS denominator
 FROM hscic.practice_statistics
 GROUP BY month, practice_id
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