England: pharmaceutical prescription items dispensed per month per pharmacy 2006-2024

In financial year 2006/07, the average number of items dispensed per month per pharmacy was approximately 5.7 thousand. By 2023/24 it had risen to over seven thousand. 

Further dispensing numbers

While the average number of items dispensed was around 7,100 per pharmacy in 2023/24, some 3,000 pharmacies dispensed an average of over ten thousand items a month. In 2023/24, overall, there were some 1.11 billion prescription items dispensed from pharmacies in England.

What is being dispensed?

The therapeutic class with the highest total of prescription items dispensed was for the cardiovascular system at some 355 million, followed by drugs for the central nervous system, which had approximately 231 million items dispensed. The leading drug dispensed was atorvastatin, treating those with high cholesterol to reduce the risk of heart attacks and strokes.