The UK government has an excellent policy of making data more open and easier to access. See:
http://data.gov.uk

As part of this policy, prescription data has been released broken down by GP practice and drug. There is a mass of detail: a single month has over 4,000,000 rows of data. This is too much for my version of Excel to cope with, so I've written a program in PHP to analyse the data for England for June 2012. (Note: England, not UK. Under devolution the other parts of the UK report separately.) Along with totals, the report shows for each "Parkinson's drug" the number of prescriptions written for it and the cost to the NHS.

Note 1. The drugs listed below can be used for PD, but some can be used for other conditions as well. It is not possible to extract these out.

Note 2. I take the "Total Items" figure to represent the number of prescriptions written for this drug regardless of size, duration, and dose. For instance, a week's worth of ropinirole, 2mg, and a month's worth of ropinirole, 16 mg, both count one. For a disease like Parkinson's, I would expect the average duration to be close to one month.

(My apologies, I've not been able to format the table here.)

The results show total monthly drug costs to the NHS of £609m, of which £7m is spent on "PD" drugs. (Note: this is not the same as saying the monthly drug costs of PwP in England is £7m: these will be higher because they include a wider range of drugs.)

*** REPORT ************************************************** *************
NHS England, prescription data, June 2012.
Number rows = 4082592
Raw data from file T201206PDPIEXT.CSV obtained from:
http://data.gov.uk/dataset/gp-practice-prescribing-data
'All prescribed and dispensed medicines (by chemical name), dressings and appliances (at section level)
are listed for each GP practice. -For each GP practice, the total number of items that were prescribed and
then dispensed is shown. -The total Net Ingredient Cost and the total Actual Cost of these items is shown. '
Available under Open Government Licence, details:
http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/d...nment-licence/

Drug Code, Drug Name,Total items, NIC, Actual cost
TOTAL,TOTAL,78609510,658805466.87994,609262986.319 61
including
0409010A0,Apomorphine Hydrochloride ,935,567602.58,522883.13
0409010B0,Amantadine Hydrochloride ,8833,81237.74,75085.77
0409010H0,Ropinirole Hydrochloride ,38929,1045358.2,964080.86
0409010I0,Levodopa ,2,206.49,190.27
0409010K0,Co-Beneldopa (Benserazide/Levodopa) ,58354,369203.01,341836.19
0409010N0,Co-Careldopa (Carbidopa/Levodopa) ,69102,1017974.1,939828.93
0409010P0,Pergolide Mesilate ,293,12049.69,11108.67
0409010S0,Tolcapone ,123,10450.15,9630.1
0409010T0,Selegiline Hydrochloride ,4334,54446.67,50280.85
0409010U0,Cabergoline ,651,72850.12,67125.93
0409010V0,Entacapone ,4344,228720.91,210818.35
0409010W0,Pramipexole ,26646,1466118.42,1351319.57
0409010X0,Levodopa/Carbidopa/Entacapone ,14663,960851.9,885533.31
0409010Y0,Rasagiline Mesilate ,9484,723728.28,666954.52
0409010Z0,Rotigotine ,5756,748280.54,689465.7
0409020C0,Trihexyphenidyl Hydrochloride ,7742,83730.04,77368
0409020E0,Benzatropine Mesilate ,39,1914.38,1764.72
0409020N0,Orphenadrine Hydrochloride ,5996,194940.02,179758.82
0409020S0,Procyclidine Hydrochloride ,65514,210941.41,196403.17
PDTOTAL,PDTOTAL,321740,7850604.65,7241436.86
Note some of the 'PD' drugs may be used for other conditions as well.

While checking that I'd got my facts right I came across this paper:
"Prescription Cost Analysis England 2011"
Health and Social Care Information Centre. Prescribing and Primary Care Services
http://www.ic.nhs.uk/webfiles/public...011_report.pdf
This gives even more detail: a breakdown by brand and dose.

My next step is to extract out data by location to see if there's any geographical variations in the prevalence of PD in England.

John

Can you determine the cost of duodopa? it is the gel form that has been used for a while in England. Thanks again.

I should have made it clear that the data I used does not "cover items dispensed in hospitals or on private prescriptions." It does include Welsh and Scottish prescriptions dispensed in England, but not English prescriptions dispensed in Wales and Scotland.

I'm not clear of the status of Duodopa in the NHS, but I did find this:

"Of the 14 patients that are currently under his care with Duodopa, none are on 2 cassettes. One is sufficient. That reduces the cost to £28,000."
http://www.commissioningboard.nhs.uk...omm-resources/

The following report gives a lot of details about Duodopa:
http://www.duodopa.co.uk/PDFs/Duodop...raph110711.pdf

John

Nearly 7 years on ...

You can get 2018 raw data from:

Drug usage and cost data for the NHS/England is available at:
Prescription Cost Analysis - England, 218 [PAS] - NHS Digital

As an example of how this data might be used, it allows us to estimate the number of PwP on a particular drug. For instance, entacapone.

The data below is from PrescriptionCostAnalysis2018-Data-CSV
Year,BNF Code,Drug Name,BNF Chemical Name,BNF Chapter Name,BNF Sub Paragraph Name,BNF Chapter,BNF Section,BNF Paragraph,BNF Sub Paragraph,Standard_Quantity_Unit ID,Prep_Class_ID,Items,Of which_Class 2_Items,Quantity,NIC (£),NIC Per_Item (£),NIC Per_Quantity_(£),Quantity_Per Item

We are concerned with "Items dispensed ... Each single item written on the form is counted as a prescription item. If a prescription form includes three medicines it is counted as three prescription items." A prescription will typically be for a month.

Summing all the entries for different doses etc., gives 48,489 prescriptions for entacapone on its own and 168,190 prescriptions for levodopa/carbidopa/entacapone (such as Stalevo and its generics). Assuming that people who are on it do so for the whole year (12 prescriptions), that suggests that about 18,000 PwP are on entacapone one way or another, which is about 15% of PwP in England.

I append the raw data so that people can do their own analyses.

John

2018,0409010V0AAAAAA,Entacapone_Tab 200mg,Entacapone,Central nervous system,Dopaminergic Drugs Used In Parkinsonism,04,09,01,0,1,1,47637,0,4193677,561551 .49,11.788137162,0.1339043255,88.034028171
2018,0409010V0AAACAC,Entacapone_Liq Spec 200mg/5ml,Entacapone,Central nervous system,Dopaminergic Drugs Used In Parkinsonism,04,09,01,0,3,1,21,0,8700,10206.71,486 .03380952,1.1731850575,414.28571429
2018,0409010V0BBAAAA,Comtess_Tab 200mg,Entacapone,Central nervous system,Dopaminergic Drugs Used In Parkinsonism,04,09,01,0,1,3,831,0,111399,64004.89, 77.021528279,0.5745553371,134.05415162

2018,0409010X0BBAAAA,Stalevo_Tab 50mg/12.5mg/200mg,Levodopa/Carbidopa/Entacapone,Central nervous system,Dopaminergic Drugs Used In Parkinsonism,04,09,01,0,1,3,5195.4,399.4,438186.1, 303690.916,58.453808369,0.6930637827,84.341167186
2018,0409010X0BBABAB,Stalevo_Tab 100mg/25mg/200mg,Levodopa/Carbidopa/Entacapone,Central nervous system,Dopaminergic Drugs Used In Parkinsonism,04,09,01,0,1,3,34869.7,1224.7,3352239 .9,2323334.742,66.629043037,0.693069354,96.1361841 37
2018,0409010X0BBACAC,Stalevo_Tab 150mg/37.5mg/200mg,Levodopa/Carbidopa/Entacapone,Central nervous system,Dopaminergic Drugs Used In Parkinsonism,04,09,01,0,1,3,26715.8,1180.8,2384172 .9,1652408.264,61.85134879,0.6930740065,89.2420552 63
2018,0409010X0BBADAD,Stalevo_Tab 200mg/50mg/200mg,Levodopa/Carbidopa/Entacapone,Central nervous system,Dopaminergic Drugs Used In Parkinsonism,04,09,01,0,1,3,13142.7,416.7,1159376. 9,803523.959,61.138423535,0.6930653517,88.21451452 1
2018,0409010X0BBAEAE,Stalevo_Tab 75mg/18.75mg/200mg,Levodopa/Carbidopa/Entacapone,Central nervous system,Dopaminergic Drugs Used In Parkinsonism,04,09,01,0,1,3,8010.7,223.7,732662.4, 507779.901,63.387706567,0.6930612257,91.460471619
2018,0409010X0BBAFAF,Stalevo_Tab 125mg/31.25mg/200mg,Levodopa/Carbidopa/Entacapone,Central nervous system,Dopaminergic Drugs Used In Parkinsonism,04,09,01,0,1,3,23816.8,1042.8,2228919 .2,1544768.831,64.860469543,0.6930573486,93.586006 516
2018,0409010X0BBAGAG,Stalevo_Tab 175mg/43.75mg/200mg,Levodopa/Carbidopa/Entacapone,Central nervous system,Dopaminergic Drugs Used In Parkinsonism,04,09,01,0,1,3,9267.8,419.8,764486.3, 529836.082,57.16956365,0.6930615787,82.488433069
2018,0409010X0BCAAAF,Sastravi_Tab 125mg/31.25mg/200mg,Levodopa/Carbidopa/Entacapone,Central nervous system,Dopaminergic Drugs Used In Parkinsonism,04,09,01,0,1,3,4876.4,213.4,449357.2, 162211.349,33.26456997,0.3609853119,92.149372488
2018,0409010X0BCABAA,Sastravi_Tab 50mg/12.5mg/200mg,Levodopa/Carbidopa/Entacapone,Central nervous system,Dopaminergic Drugs Used In Parkinsonism,04,09,01,0,1,3,1245.5,113.5,89992.2,3 3515.79,26.909506222,0.3724299439,72.253873946
2018,0409010X0BCACAE,Sastravi_Tab 75mg/18.75mg/200mg,Levodopa/Carbidopa/Entacapone,Central nervous system,Dopaminergic Drugs Used In Parkinsonism,04,09,01,0,1,3,1927.7,54.7,174856.1,6 2004.931,32.165238886,0.3546054784,90.707112103
2018,0409010X0BCADAB,Sastravi_Tab 100mg/25mg/200mg,Levodopa/Carbidopa/Entacapone,Central nervous system,Dopaminergic Drugs Used In Parkinsonism,04,09,01,0,1,3,6924.6,247.6,673796.1, 240439.053,34.722446495,0.3568424528,97.3046963
2018,0409010X0BCAEAC,Sastravi_Tab 150mg/37.5mg/200mg,Levodopa/Carbidopa/Entacapone,Central nervous system,Dopaminergic Drugs Used In Parkinsonism,04,09,01,0,1,3,4637.4,208.4,406503.2, 146511.97,31.593558891,0.3604202132,87.65756674
2018,0409010X0BCAFAG,Sastravi_Tab 175mg/43.75mg/200mg,Levodopa/Carbidopa/Entacapone,Central nervous system,Dopaminergic Drugs Used In Parkinsonism,04,09,01,0,1,3,1648.6,74.6,160832.5,5 7741.796,35.024745845,0.3590182084,97.557018076
2018,0409010X0BCAGAD,Sastravi_Tab 200mg/50mg/200mg,Levodopa/Carbidopa/Entacapone,Central nervous system,Dopaminergic Drugs Used In Parkinsonism,04,09,01,0,1,3,2996.5,88.5,258174.1,9 2269.699,30.792490906,0.357393321,86.158551644
2018,0409010X0BDAAAE,Stanek_Tab 75mg/18.75mg/200mg,Levodopa/Carbidopa/Entacapone,Central nervous system,Dopaminergic Drugs Used In Parkinsonism,04,09,01,0,1,3,1674.6,46.6,163759.5,5 7994.609,34.631917473,0.3541450053,97.79021856
2018,0409010X0BDABAD,Stanek_Tab 200mg/50mg/200mg,Levodopa/Carbidopa/Entacapone,Central nervous system,Dopaminergic Drugs Used In Parkinsonism,04,09,01,0,1,3,2556.8,77.8,210386.9,7 5406.842,29.492663486,0.3584198541,82.285239362
2018,0409010X0BDACAG,Stanek_Tab 175mg/43.75mg/200mg,Levodopa/Carbidopa/Entacapone,Central nervous system,Dopaminergic Drugs Used In Parkinsonism,04,09,01,0,1,3,1383.7,62.7,134482.1,4 8384.241,34.96729132,0.3597820156,97.190214642
2018,0409010X0BDADAC,Stanek_Tab 150mg/37.5mg/200mg,Levodopa/Carbidopa/Entacapone,Central nervous system,Dopaminergic Drugs Used In Parkinsonism,04,09,01,0,1,3,4806.9,213.9,459090.9, 165022.788,34.330397554,0.3594555849,95.506646695
2018,0409010X0BDAEAA,Stanek_Tab 50mg/12.5mg/200mg,Levodopa/Carbidopa/Entacapone,Central nervous system,Dopaminergic Drugs Used In Parkinsonism,04,09,01,0,1,3,1067.1,86.1,93969.6,34 559.584,32.386453003,0.3677740886,88.06072533
2018,0409010X0BDAFAB,Stanek_Tab 100mg/25mg/200mg,Levodopa/Carbidopa/Entacapone,Central nervous system,Dopaminergic Drugs Used In Parkinsonism,04,09,01,0,1,3,6353.7,226.7,621967,22 1687.795,34.891133513,0.3564301563,97.890520484
2018,0409010X0BDAGAF,Stanek_Tab 125mg/31.25mg/200mg,Levodopa/Carbidopa/Entacapone,Central nervous system,Dopaminergic Drugs Used In Parkinsonism,04,09,01,0,1,3,5071.8,222.8,451338.5, 162879.099,32.114653377,0.3608801354,88.98980638