Prescription Drugs

(asked on 10th January 2018) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many (a) hospital admissions and (b) deaths related to (i) benzodiazepines, (ii) z drugs and (ii) antidepressants there were in the last year.


Answered by
Steve Brine Portrait
Steve Brine
This question was answered on 17th January 2018

In 2016-17, the Hospital Episode Statistics (HES) database showed the number of finished admission episodes with a primary or secondary diagnosis of benzodiazepines and antidepressants as follows:

Benzodiazepines

7,313

Z drugs (Zopiclone / Zolpidem)

not available

Antidepressants

16,108

Similar information on the number of admissions for Z drugs cannot be extracted from the HES database. The classification of admissions includes, but is not limited to, those relating to the use of Z drugs and therefore these instances cannot be isolated.

In 2016, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) published the following information for drug related deaths:

Benzodiazepines

406

Z drugs

94

Antidepressants

460

This information was published by the ONS on 2 August 2017 and is available online at:

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/datasets/deathsrelatedtodrugpoisoningenglandandwalesreferencetable

Reticulating Splines