Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to the Answer of 21 December 2017 to Question 119603 on prescription drugs, what information his Department holds on the number of unique patients prescribed (a) benzodiazepines and (b) z drugs, including the duration of those prescriptions, for the last full two years for which data is available.
The information is not held in the requested format. NHS Business Services Authority does not hold data relating to the dosage or the time period for which drugs are prescribed.
Provided in the table below are the number of unique patients who have been prescribed benzodiazepines and z-drugs during the last full two years for which data is available.
Period | Drug Group | Number of unique identifiable patients | Proportion of Items where patient could be identified |
January 2016 - December 2016 | Benzodiazepine | 1,631,587 | 93.22% |
January 2017 - December 2017 | Benzodiazepine | 1,605,565 | 94.60% |
January 2016 - December 2016 | Z-Drug | 1,039,141 | 95.19% |
January 2017 - December 2017 | Z-Drug | 1,012,079 | 96.33% |