Static outliers for The Mansell Road Practice

There is substantial variation in prescribing behaviours, across various different areas of medicine. Some variation can be explained by demographic changes, or local policies or guidelines, but much of the remaining variation is less easy to explain. At OpenPrescribing we are piloting a number of data-driven approaches to identify unusual prescribing and collect feedback on this prescribing to inform development of new tools to support prescribers and organisations to audit and review prescribing.

This report has been developed to automatically identify prescribing patterns at a chemical level which are furthest away from “typical prescribing” and can be classified as an “outlier”. We calculate the number of prescriptions for each chemical in the BNF coding system using the BNF subparagraph as a denominator, for prescriptions dispensed between April 2021 and August 2021. We then calculate the mean and standard deviation for each numerator and denominator pair across all practices/CCGs/PCNs/STPs. From this we can calculate the “z-score”, which is a measure of how many standard deviations a given practice/CCG/PCN/STP is from the population mean. We then rank your “z-scores” to find the top 5 results where prescribing is an outlier for prescribing higher than its peers and those where it is an outlier for prescribing lower than its peers.

It is important to remember that this information was generated automatically and it is therefore likely that some of the behaviour is warranted. This report seeks only to collect information about where this variation may be warranted and where it might not. Our full analytical method code is openly available on GitHub here.

The DataLab is keen to hear your feedback on the results. You can do this by completing the following survey or emailing us at ebmdatalab@phc.ox.ac.uk. Please DO NOT INCLUDE IDENTIFIABLE PATIENT information in your feedback. All feedback is helpful, you can send short or detailed feedback.

Prescribing where The Mansell Road Practice is higher than most

BNF Chemical	Chemical Items	BNF Subparagraph	Subparagraph Items	Ratio	Mean	std	Z_Score	Plots
Mianserin hydrochloride☰	2	Tricyclic and related antidepressant drugs	471	0.00	0.00	0.00	15.82
Mianserin 10mg tablets : 2
Fludroxycortide☰	19	Topical corticosteroids	385	0.05	0.00	0.01	8.51
Fludroxycortide 4micrograms/square cm tape 7.5cm : 19
Alogliptin/metformin☰	138	Other antidiabetic drugs	898	0.15	0.00	0.02	8.13
Alogliptin 12.5mg / Metformin 1g tablets : 138
Doxycycline monohydrate☰	4	Tetracyclines	69	0.06	0.00	0.01	6.31
Doxycycline 40mg modified-release capsules : 4
Tapentadol hydrochloride☰	24	Opioid analgesics	219	0.11	0.01	0.02	5.81
Tapentadol 100mg modified-release tablets : 2 Tapentadol 50mg modified-release tablets : 4 Tapentadol 50mg tablets : 12 Tapentadol 150mg modified-release tablets : 6

Prescribing where The Mansell Road Practice is lower than most

BNF Chemical	Chemical Items	BNF Subparagraph	Subparagraph Items	Ratio	Mean	std	Z_Score	Plots
Water for injection☰	0	Electrolytes and water	4	0.00	0.82	0.26	-3.14
Ispaghula husk☰	3	Bulk-forming laxatives	4	0.75	0.96	0.07	-2.87
Ispaghula husk 3.5g efferv gran sach gluten free sugar free : 2 Fybogel Orange 3.5g effervescent granules sachets SF : 1
Citalopram hydrobromide☰	97	Selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitors	925	0.10	0.32	0.08	-2.56
Citalopram 20mg tablets : 77 Citalopram 40mg tablets : 2 Citalopram 10mg tablets : 18
Simvastatin☰	146	Lipid-regulating drugs	4078	0.04	0.22	0.08	-2.46
Simvastatin 20mg tablets : 44 Simvastatin 40mg tablets : 85 Simvastatin 10mg tablets : 17
Salicylic acid☰	0	Preparations for warts and calluses	4	0.00	0.69	0.31	-2.20