How to See National Prescribing Trends for a Drug or BNF Section on OpenPrescribing

Updated

OpenPrescribing lets you chart national prescribing trends for any drug or BNF section over the last 5 years. From the homepage, use the Trends menu and choose either Trends for BNF sections or Trends for chemicals, or click Find a drug under "Spot national trends." You'll get a national-level chart showing how prescribing for that item has changed over time.

What you can look at

The site separates trends into two main paths:

  • Trends for BNF sections — broader categories of medicines grouped by BNF classification.
  • Trends for chemicals — individual drugs or chemical substances.

There is also a Trends for Drug Tariff and Concessions option, which is separate from the prescribing trend charts and relates to Drug Tariff pricing and price concessions.

If you're not sure which drug or section you want, the Find a drug entry point is the simplest starting place.

Step-by-step

  1. Go to openprescribing.net.
  2. Open the Trends menu in the top navigation.
  3. Select Trends for BNF sections or Trends for chemicals, depending on whether you want a category or a specific drug.
  4. Search for the drug or BNF section you're interested in.
  5. View the chart to see how national prescribing has changed over the last 5 years.

Expected result: a national trend chart for your chosen drug or BNF section, showing the direction and scale of change over time.

What the trends tell you

National trend data helps you see whether prescribing for a drug or class is rising, falling, or stable across England. This is useful for:

  • Checking whether a change you've noticed locally reflects a wider national pattern.
  • Understanding how prescribing behaviour for a BNF section has shifted over several years.
  • Providing context before looking at a specific practice, PCN, Sub-ICB Location, or ICB dashboard.

Related ways to explore the data

If you want to go beyond national trends, OpenPrescribing also provides:

What you want Where to go
National trends for a drug or BNF section Trends menu → BNF sections / chemicals
Your local area (ICB, Sub-ICB Location) Area dashboards
Your GP practice Practice dashboards
Your hospital Hospital dashboards
Custom analysis Query form ("Start analysing")
Drug Tariff prices and concessions Drug Tariff section

Citing the data

If you use OpenPrescribing data or graphs, the site asks you to cite it as: OpenPrescribing.net, Bennett Institute for Applied Data Science, University of Oxford, 2026. This helps others find the source.

Common sticking points

  • "Trends" vs "Find a drug" — both lead to trend views; the Trends menu is more explicit about whether you're searching by BNF section or by chemical.
  • BNF section vs chemical — if your search returns nothing useful, try the other option. A drug name may sit under a chemical entry, while a therapeutic area is better found as a BNF section.
  • National vs local — the trend charts show national data. To see a specific practice or area, use the dashboards instead.
  • Time range — the national trend view covers the last 5 years, so it won't show longer historical patterns.