Items which should not routinely be prescribed in primary care - doxazosin modified release

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 doxazosin modified release per 1000 patients
Why it matters

NHS England guidance states:

Doxazosin is an alpha-adrenoceptor blocking drug that can be used to treat hypertension and benign prostatic hyperplasia. There are two oral forms of the medication (immediate release and prolonged release) and both are taken once daily.

Prolonged-release doxazosin has historically cost much more than the immediate-release formulation. However as of January 2026 the 4mg immediate-release formulation is significantly more expensive than the prolonged-release formulation. As the NHS England guidance is still in place, we continue to show this measure, but we have removed from the overall low-priority measure, and are regularly reviewing the appropriateness.
Tags Cardiovascular system, Cost Saving, NHS England - items which should not routinely be prescribed in primary care
Implies cost savings No
Authored by richard.croker
Checked by christopher.wood
Last reviewed 2026-02-01
Next review due 2026-07-01
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 ("0205040D0AAAQAQ", "0205040D0AAARAR", "0205040D0BBADAQ", "0205040D0BBAEAR", "0205040D0BDADAQ", "0205040D0BEAAAQ", "0205040D0BGABAQ", "0205040D0BIAAAQ", "0205040D0BJAAAQ", "0205040D0BKAAAQ")
 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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