Health: Addiction to Prescribed Drugs

Baroness Thornton Excerpts

Wednesday 6th October 2010 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Thornton]

My Lords, I am very pleased that the noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, has succeeded in securing this debate. His persistence in raising this important issue is to be commended.

Last November, the noble Earl pressed me as the then Minister about this important matter and I assured him that the promised review would report this year, 2010. I understand that this has now been extended to next year. I join the noble Earl in his disappointment, given that we know the scale of the problem. I also join the noble Baroness, Lady Bottomley, in saying that this issue should not fall between the cracks of reorganisation.

I understand that the extended review includes a literature review, an audit of selected PCT prescribing data and a survey of the withdrawal assistance that is available from the voluntary sector. However, many believe the review to be a case of too little, too late. The terms of reference have been shrunk; the completion date is repeatedly extended; and patients have been excluded from the process. This is a far from satisfactory situation and I hope that the Minister will be able to give us more comfort than seems apparent. It is simply not acceptable in these days of sophisticated medication that people should take prescribed drugs in good faith and then find themselves incapacitated when they try to stop taking them.

Given the limitation in the time that we have this evening, I wish to address two areas. The first is in the context of the treatment of depression. As the Minister will know, NICE guidance on the treatment of mild to moderate depression and anxiety disorders recommends cognitive behavioural therapy as the treatment with the strongest evidence base for efficacy. For this reason, the Labour Government invested £173 million in the Improving Access to Psychological Therapies programme to train a new workforce of 3,600 people in cognitive behavioural therapy in the three years to 2010-11. Will the Minister explain what the future holds for psychological therapies? With GP commissioning coming down the track, this seems to be yet another matter that is riven with uncertainties.

I raise, secondly, SSRI antidepressants, which I discussed with the noble Earl before our debate. I think that we agree that this is also a matter that is linked to this discussion. We know that they are effective treatments which have benefited millions of people. Since completion of the review by the expert working group in 2004, every effort has been made to issue updated advice as appropriate, and communications are issued to healthcare professionals via the central alerting system, the MHRA website and the Drug Safety Update. What is the current position on the usage and ongoing reviews of SSRIs? Can we be sure, for example, that no person under 18 is prescribed a drug such as Seroxat? I feel strongly about this issue, because a relative of mine has never recovered from having been prescribed Seroxat when he was 15 years old, many years ago. All companies have a responsibility to patients and should report any adverse data signals to us as soon as they discover them. The investigation into GlaxoSmithKline and the use of Seroxat revealed important weaknesses in the drug safety legislation in force at the time. Can the Minister assure the House that steps being taken to strengthen the law will ensure that there can be no doubt as to companies' obligations to report safety issues?

I urge the Minister to take up this important issue of dependence on benzodiazepines and to ensure that a co-ordinated action plan results from the review now being undertaken.