Glossary
The terms used across Pharmacy8 and in UK community pharmacy data, in plain English.
- Appliance contractor
- An NHS contractor that supplies appliances such as stoma and continence products, but not medicines. Appliance contractors are left out of Pharmacy8's community pharmacy lists and rankings.
- Cohort (benchmarking)
- The group of pharmacies a pharmacy is compared with on the Benchmarking page: every pharmacy in the same nation, or in the same ICB or health board, optionally only those of a similar size. Pharmacies from another nation are never included.
- Common Ailments Service (Wales)
- The Welsh NHS service in which community pharmacies give advice and treatment for common conditions, including sore throat test-and-treat and urinary tract infections. It is the Welsh equivalent of Pharmacy First, and Pharmacy8 shows it under that name on Welsh pages.
- Dispensing GP practice
- A GP practice allowed to dispense medicines to some of its own patients, usually in rural areas a long way from a pharmacy.
- Distance-selling pharmacy
- An NHS pharmacy in England that serves patients remotely, usually online and by post, and may not provide face-to-face services on its premises. Their volumes are often far larger than a high-street pharmacy's, so Pharmacy8's top-10 lists leave them out.
- EPS nomination
- A patient's choice of pharmacy for their electronic prescriptions in England. A pharmacy's nominations are a snapshot count of patients who have chosen it.
- GP feeder surgery
- A GP surgery whose prescriptions a pharmacy dispenses. A pharmacy's share of a surgery's items shows how much of that surgery's business it wins.
- Health board
- One of the 14 territorial NHS boards in Scotland. Health boards hold the pharmaceutical list and decide applications to open a pharmacy.
- IMD (Index of Multiple Deprivation)
- England's official measure of relative deprivation for small areas. Pharmacy8 shows deciles on the official scale, where 1 is the most deprived 10%.
- Integrated care board (ICB)
- The NHS body that plans and pays for local health services across an area of England, including community pharmacy.
- MCR (Medicines: Care and Review)
- A Scottish NHS service in which patients with long-term conditions register with a pharmacy for ongoing care and serial prescriptions.
- NMS (New Medicine Service)
- An NHS service in England in which a pharmacist supports a patient who has just started a medicine for certain long-term conditions.
- ODS code
- The unique code the NHS gives each organisation, such as a pharmacy (for example FA123) or GP practice. Scottish community pharmacies use four-digit contractor codes.
- Percentile
- A pharmacy's position in its cohort on a scale of 0 to 100: the share of the cohort at or below it. The 75th percentile means it matches or beats three in four comparable pharmacies on that measure.
- Pharmaceutical needs assessment (PNA)
- A statement each health and wellbeing board in England publishes about local need for pharmacy services. Applications to open a pharmacy in England are judged against it.
- Pharmacy application (Scotland)
- A request to a health board to join its pharmaceutical list at a new site. The board decides whether a new pharmacy is necessary or desirable to secure adequate services in the neighbourhood.
- Pharmacy First (England)
- An NHS service launched in January 2024 in which pharmacists can assess and treat seven common conditions, such as sinusitis, sore throat and uncomplicated urinary tract infections in women, and handle referrals for minor illness.
- Pharmacy First (Scotland)
- NHS Pharmacy First Scotland, available since July 2020. Patients can visit a community pharmacy for advice, treatment or referral for common clinical conditions. Pharmacy8 counts every consultation, whatever its outcome.
- Prescription items
- Each medicine or appliance on a prescription counts as one item. Items dispensed per month is the standard measure of a pharmacy's NHS dispensing volume.
- Quartile
- One quarter of a ranked cohort. The upper quartile is the top 25% (the 75th percentile and above); the middle half runs from the 25th to the 75th percentile, with the median in the middle.
- SIMD (Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation)
- Scotland's official measure of relative deprivation for data zones. Pharmacy8 shows deciles on the official scale, where 1 is the most deprived 10%.
How Pharmacy8 works out its figures: methodology.