Prescription Drugs

(asked on 19th February 2018) - View Source

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.


Answered by
Steve Brine Portrait
Steve Brine
This question was answered on 27th February 2018

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%

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