Items which should not routinely be prescribed in primary care - bath and shower emollients

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 Bath and Shower emollients per 1000 patients
Why it matters

NHS England guidance states:

NICE guidance recommends that emollient bath additives should not be offered to children under the age of 12 for the management of atopic eczema, because they are not clinically- or cost-effective.

'Leave-on' emollient moisturisers can still be used for treating eczema. These emollients can also be used as a soap substitute.

It is recognised that this recommendation applies only to children; however, it was agreed that it is acceptable to extrapolate this recommendation to apply to adults until other good quality evidence emerges.

For guidance on when prescribing may be appropriate in some exceptional circumstances, please see the full NHS England guidance document.
Tags Cost Saving, NHS England - items which should not routinely be prescribed in primary care, Efficacy
Implies cost savings Yes
Authored by richard.croker
Checked by andrew.brown
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 ("130201000BBMFCA", "130201000BBMGCA", "130201100AAAAAA", "130201100AAAEAE", "130201100AAAGAG", "130201100AAAHAH", "130201100AAANAN", "130201100BBAAAE", "130201100BBADAH", "130201100BBAEAA", "130201100BBAGAG", "130201100BBAQA0", "130201100BBAXA0", "130201100BBAYAL", "130201100BBAZAN", "130201100BBBAAN", "130201100BBBBA0", "1302011L0AAADAD", "1302011L0AAAEAE", "1302011L0AAAHAH", "1302011L0AAAIAI", "1302011L0BDAAAC", "1302011L0BEAAAD", "1302011L0BFAAAE", "1302011L0BJAAAG", "1302011L0BKAAAH", "1302011L0BKACAH", "1302011L0BKADAI", "1302011L0BKAEAI", "1302011L0BKAFAI", "1302011L0BLAAAD", "1302011M0AAAEAE", "1302011M0AAAGAG", "1302011M0AAAIAI", "1302011M0BBAAAE", "1302011M0BFAAAA", "1302011M0BIAAAG", "1302011M0BKAAAI", "190205500BBEJA0", "190205500BBTVA0", "190205500BCFIA0", "190205500BCFWA0", "190205500BCLXA0", "190205500BCMVA0", "190205500BCPAA0", "190205500BCPVA0", "190205500BCPWA0", "190205500BCQBA0", "190205500BCQCA0", "190205500BCQJA0", "190205500BCQKA0", "21220000128", "21220000209", "21220000211", "21220000217", "21220000224", "21220000227", "21220000229", "21220000316")
 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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