What does the Business Services Authority do?

It processes the NHS's transactional back office in England — prescription payments, dental contracts, pensions and student bursaries — which is why its open data is unusually concrete.

Is patient data in here?

No. These are aggregate statistics and organisational records. Nothing in the portal identifies individuals.

Yes. It comes from The NHSBSA open data portal, key-free. Nothing is invented or simulated, and if the source cannot be reached the saver reports that instead of drawing something plausible.

Does it cost anything or need an account?

No. Every screensaver here is free, runs in the browser and needs no sign-up. This one uses a public API that requires no key.

What is a freedom of information response?

It is an answer to a request under the Freedom of Information Act asking a public body for recorded information. The NHSBSA portal hosts a Freedom of Information Disclosure Log of its responses.

Does prescribing data show how many patients take a drug?

No. It counts prescription items, and an item is one line on a prescription, so one patient receiving many items is counted many times.

Is the data free to reuse?

The NHSBSA open data portal describes its data as free for use and re-use. Individual datasets may carry their own documentation, so check the one you use.

What The NHS Counts Screensaver

The What The NHS Counts screensaver streams datasets published by the NHS Business Services Authority — prescribing volumes, dental and pharmacy payments — alongside its released freedom of information responses. It runs in the browser with nothing to install; press ESC to exit.

How the What The NHS Counts screensaver works

The saver reads The NHSBSA open data portal, key-free.

No account and no key: the request goes straight from your browser, or from this site's own refreshed copy of the feed where the source does not permit browser access.

Values are drawn on a canvas that resizes with the window, so it works on a laptop or a wall display.

If the source is unreachable the saver says so on screen rather than showing stale numbers as though they were current.

What the NHS Business Services Authority publishes

The NHS Business Services Authority, or NHSBSA, is an arm’s length body of the Department of Health and Social Care. It provides central services that support the NHS, covering platforms for the NHS workforce, essential primary care functions and services direct to the public, such as help with health costs. Its open data portal says its data is free for use and re-use.

The portal groups its releases into categories that include Community Prescribing and Dispensing, Dental Data, Dispensing Contractors, Hospital and Provider Medicines, and a Freedom of Information Disclosure Log holding the NHSBSA’s responses to requests. Different datasets update on different schedules, and some ad hoc releases are one-off and not updated after publication.

The data are administrative: they count items, claims and payments, not clinical outcomes. In its Prescription Cost Analysis, an item is a single line prescribed on a form, so a form with three medicines counts as three items. A prescribing figure therefore shows items dispensed, not how many people took a medicine or how well it worked. Check each dataset’s own documentation for its scope.

A worked example

Each row names a dataset with a short description, the date it changed and how many files it contains. The FOI entries are highlighted, and they are the ones worth noticing: each is a question somebody asked the organisation, and the register of what people ask is a fair description of what it is under pressure about.

Settings & tips

Accent and Background recolour the display without changing the data.
Add it to a Multi-view grid to watch it alongside other live savers.
Press ESC at any time to leave fullscreen.

Frequently asked questions

What does the Business Services Authority do?: It processes the NHS's transactional back office in England — prescription payments, dental contracts, pensions and student bursaries — which is why its open data is unusually concrete.
Is patient data in here?: No. These are aggregate statistics and organisational records. Nothing in the portal identifies individuals.
Is this real data?: Yes. It comes from The NHSBSA open data portal, key-free. Nothing is invented or simulated, and if the source cannot be reached the saver reports that instead of drawing something plausible.
Does it cost anything or need an account?: No. Every screensaver here is free, runs in the browser and needs no sign-up. This one uses a public API that requires no key.
What is a freedom of information response?: It is an answer to a request under the Freedom of Information Act asking a public body for recorded information. The NHSBSA portal hosts a Freedom of Information Disclosure Log of its responses.
Does prescribing data show how many patients take a drug?: No. It counts prescription items, and an item is one line on a prescription, so one patient receiving many items is counted many times.
Is the data free to reuse?: The NHSBSA open data portal describes its data as free for use and re-use. Individual datasets may carry their own documentation, so check the one you use.

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