Community pharmacies were responsible for dispensing over 99 per cent of items in 2022/23, revealed General Pharmaceutical Services for Northern Ireland,
Annual Statistics 2022/23 published on Thursday (29 June).
While the remaining one per cent dispensed by appliance contractors and dispensing doctors.
According to the statistics, on average, each community pharmacy dispensed over 84,000 items in 2022/23, witnessing a growth of over 3 per cent on the previous
year to 44.6 million in 2022/23, which is the highest level of dispensing recorded.
This equated to BSO processing 2.1 million prescription forms per month, on average, throughout the year, representing a 4 per cent increase on the just over
2.0m processed each month last year.
The total ingredient cost over the year was £486.9 million. This was an increase of approaching 7 per cent on the previous year, which was around double the
percentage increase in the number of items dispensed. The annual ingredient cost total has fluctuated since the beginning of the series but was over
18 per cent higher in 2022/23 than in 2013/14.