Static outliers for Scarsdale Medical Centre

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 Scarsdale Medical Centre is higher than most

BNF Chemical	Chemical Items	BNF Subparagraph	Subparagraph Items	Ratio	Mean	std	Z_Score	Plots
Cyproterone acetate☰	3	Male sex hormones and antagonists	178	0.02	0.00	0.00	15.54
Androcur 50mg tablets : 3
Co-proxamol (Dextropropoxyphene hydrochloride/paracetamol)☰	6	Non-opioid analgesics and compound preparations	353	0.02	0.00	0.00	14.84
Co-proxamol 32.5mg/325mg tablets : 6
Ciclosporin☰	4	Tear deficiency, eye lubricant/astringent	93	0.04	0.00	0.00	11.38
Ciclosporin 0.05% eye dps 0.4ml unit dose preservative free : 4
Tizanidine hydrochloride☰	23	Skeletal muscle relaxants	27	0.85	0.07	0.10	7.62
Tizanidine 2mg tablets : 2 Tizanidine 4mg tablets : 21
Entacapone☰	20	Dopaminergic drugs used in parkinsonism	119	0.17	0.01	0.02	7.23
Entacapone 200mg tablets : 20

Prescribing where Scarsdale Medical Centre is lower than most

BNF Chemical	Chemical Items	BNF Subparagraph	Subparagraph Items	Ratio	Mean	std	Z_Score	Plots
Aciclovir☰	24	Herpes simplex and varicella-zoster	37	0.65	0.95	0.07	-4.44
Aciclovir 800mg tablets : 4 Aciclovir 400mg tablets : 13 Aciclovir 200mg tablets : 7
Baclofen☰	4	Skeletal muscle relaxants	27	0.15	0.83	0.18	-3.69
Baclofen 10mg tablets : 4
Calcipotriol☰	8	Preparations for psoriasis	14	0.57	0.87	0.08	-3.63
Calcipotriol 50microg/Betamethasone diprop 500microg/g foam : 2 Calcipotriol 0.005% / Betamethasone dipropionate 0.05% oint : 1 Dovonex 50micrograms/g ointment : 1 Enstilar 50micrograms/g / 0.5 mg/g cutaneous foam : 4
Ispaghula husk☰	21	Bulk-forming laxatives	29	0.72	0.96	0.07	-3.22
Fybogel Orange 3.5g effervescent granules sachets SF : 13 Fybogel 3.5g effervescent granules sachets plain SF : 3 Fybogel Hi-Fibre Lemon 3.5g effervescent granules sachets : 5
Azathioprine☰	9	Antiproliferative immunosuppressants	32	0.28	0.80	0.19	-2.82
Azathioprine 50mg tablets : 9