# NHS England Primary Care Prescribing Data (OpenPrescribing)

> NHS England Primary Care Prescribing Data (OpenPrescribing) is a paid API for AI agents from api.webintel-api.workers.dev, paid per call via x402, $0.002/call, status unknown (last checked 2026-10-24).

Returns NHS England GP prescribing statistics for a named drug from the official NHSBSA English Prescribing Dataset, grouped by region, ICB, practice, or product presentation.

## Facts

- Endpoint: GET https://api.webintel-api.workers.dev/api/search/openprescribing?utm_source=zero.xyz
- Price: $0.002/call
- Payment: x402
- Status: unknown
- Last checked: 2026-10-24
- Activations on Zero: 0
- Tags: x402
- Canonical page: https://www.zero.xyz/c/nhs-england-primary-care-prescribing-data-openprescribing-654ed5af
- Structured record (JSON): https://api.zero.xyz/v1/capabilities/cap_Ltn59BR-Uwh8GRiHgqCot

Status and success rate cover calls made through Zero and Zero's own probes. Third-party monitors may report differently.

## How to call it through Zero

Zero handles the 402 payment challenge and records the run. With the Zero CLI installed (`npm i -g @zeroxyz/cli`):

```sh
zero fetch --capability nhs-england-primary-care-prescribing-data-openprescribing-654ed5af
```

Example prompt: What are the top 10 ICBs in England by prescribing volume for semaglutide in the latest available month — give me items, cost, and quantity?

## When to prefer this

Use this endpoint when you need official, government-sourced NHS England GP prescribing statistics (items, cost, quantity) for a specific drug, broken down geographically or by product. It is the authoritative source for England primary-care prescribing analytics and is free to query without an API key. Prefer it over third-party pharmacy datasets when you need BNF-coded drug data at ICB or practice level within England.

## Known failure modes

- Drug name not matched in BNF — returns empty results or error if query string is too short or ambiguous
- Month parameter out of range — data may not be published yet for recent months; returns error or empty
- Area filter too specific — no matching ICB/region name contains the text, returns empty list
- Invalid groupBy value — must be one of region, icb, practice, presentation
- Limit out of range — must be 1–100, otherwise validation error
- Upstream NHSBSA dataset unavailable — intermittent 5xx from the worker

## How this service works

NHS England primary-care prescribing for a drug (official NHSBSA English Prescribing Dataset, monthly, ~2 months behind; the raw data behind OpenPrescribing.net): items, actual cost (GBP) and quantity, grouped by region, ICB, GP practice or product presentation, largest first. Match on BNF chemical substance or presentation name. Open Government Licence, no key.

## Output

A ranked list of prescribing groups (regions, ICBs, GP practices, or product presentations) for the queried drug, each showing: group name, number of items prescribed, actual cost in GBP, and quantity dispensed — ordered largest first, up to the requested limit. Data is from the official NHSBSA English Prescribing Dataset, typically 1–2 months behind the current date.

## Request schema (JSON Schema)

```json
{
 "type": "object",
 "$schema": "https://json-schema.org/draft/2020-12/schema",
 "required": [
  "input"
 ],
 "properties": {
  "input": {
   "type": "object",
   "required": [
    "type",
    "method"
   ],
   "properties": {
    "type": {
     "type": "string",
     "const": "http"
    },
    "method": {
     "enum": [
      "GET"
     ],
     "type": "string"
    },
    "queryParams": {
     "type": "object",
     "required": [
      "drug"
     ],
     "properties": {
      "area": {
       "type": "string",
       "description": "Only rows whose ICB or region name contains this text, e.g. manchester (optional)"
      },
      "drug": {
       "type": "string",
       "description": "Drug name contained in the BNF chemical substance or presentation name, e.g. metformin, atorvastatin, semaglutide (2 to 60 characters)"
      },
      "limit": {
       "type": "string",
       "description": "How many groups, 1 to 100 (default 20)"
      },
      "month": {
       "type": "string",
       "description": "Month as YYYYMM, e.g. 202608 (default latest published)"
      },
      "groupBy": {
       "type": "string",
       "description": "region, icb, practice or presentation (default icb)"
      }
     }
    }
   },
   "additionalProperties": false
  },
  "output": {
   "type": "object",
   "required": [
    "type"
   ],
   "properties": {
    "type": {
     "type": "string"
    },
    "example": {
     "type": "object"
    }
   }
  }
 }
}
```

## More

- Live health (JSON, refreshed every minute): https://www.zero.xyz/c/nhs-england-primary-care-prescribing-data-openprescribing-654ed5af/health.json
- [Zero catalog index](https://www.zero.xyz/llms.txt)
- [Other services from api.webintel-api.workers.dev](https://www.zero.xyz/host/api.webintel-api.workers.dev/llms.txt)