Static outliers for Lathom Road 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 Lathom Road Medical Centre is higher than most

BNF Chemical	Chemical Items	BNF Subparagraph	Subparagraph Items	Ratio	Mean	std	Z_Score	Plots
Other magnesium preparations☰	1	Magnesium	1	1.00	0.01	0.07	13.57
Valupak Magnesium tablets : 1
Exemestane☰	49	Breast cancer	64	0.77	0.06	0.07	10.21
Exemestane 25mg tablets : 33 Aromasin 25mg tablets : 16
Raloxifene hydrochloride☰	13	Oestrogens and Hormone Replacement Therapy	51	0.25	0.01	0.03	8.36
Raloxifene 60mg tablets : 13
Clindamycin/tretinoin☰	31	Topical preparations for acne	97	0.32	0.02	0.04	8.12
Clindamycin 1% / Tretinoin 0.025% gel : 4 Treclin 1%/0.025% gel : 27
Paraffin soft yellow☰	4	Tear deficiency, eye lubricant/astringent	31	0.13	0.01	0.02	7.12
Simple eye ointment : 4

Prescribing where Lathom Road Medical Centre is lower than most

BNF Chemical	Chemical Items	BNF Subparagraph	Subparagraph Items	Ratio	Mean	std	Z_Score	Plots
Tamsulosin hydrochloride☰	193	Drugs for urinary retention	318	0.61	0.92	0.06	-5.14
Tamsulosin 400microgram modified-release capsules : 190 Tamsulosin 400microgram modified-release tablets : 2 Contiflo XL 400microgram capsules (Ranbaxy) : 1
Co-cyprindiol (Cyprote acetate/ethinylestradiol)☰	4	Oral preparations for acne	13	0.31	0.97	0.13	-4.94
Dianette tablets (Bayer) : 4
Trimethoprim☰	26	Sulfonamides and trimethoprim	57	0.46	0.86	0.13	-3.16
Trimethoprim 200mg tablets : 8 Trimethoprim 100mg tablets : 7 Trimethoprim 50mg/5ml oral suspension sugar free : 11
Fluconazole☰	12	Triazole antifungals	25	0.48	0.85	0.15	-2.52
Fluconazole 50mg capsules : 2 Fluconazole 150mg capsules : 10
Lithium carbonate☰	0	Drugs used for mania and hypomania	6	0.00	0.61	0.28	-2.19