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

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 amiodarone per 1000 patients
Why it matters

NHS England guidance states:

May be suitable in patients prior and post cardioversion or in specific patients who also have heart failure or left ventricular impairment.

Must be initiated by a specialist and only continued under a shared care arrangement for patients where other treatments cannot be used, have failed or is in line with NICE Guidance CG180.

Where there is an existing cohort of patients taking amiodarone who are not currently under shared care, it is recommended that these patients are reviewed to ensure that prescribing remains safe and appropriate and a shared care arrangement is introduced.

For guidance on when prescribing may be appropriate in some exceptional circumstances, please see the full NHS England guidance document.
Tags Cost Saving, Cardiovascular system, NHS England - items which should not routinely be prescribed in primary care, NICE, Safety
Implies cost savings Yes
Authored by richard.croker
Checked by christopher.wood
Last reviewed 2024-03-05
Next review due 2026-03-05
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 ("0203020D0AAAAAA", "0203020D0AAABAB", "0203020D0AAADAD", "0203020D0AAAUAU", "0203020D0AAAVAV", "0203020D0AAAWAW", "0203020D0AAAYAY", "0203020D0AABFBF", "0203020D0AABGBG", "0203020D0AABHBH", "0203020D0AACHCH", "0203020D0AACICI", "0203020D0BBAAAA", "0203020D0BBABAB")
 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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