Analgesics
(asked on 24th April 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 people have died or been admitted to hospital as a result of taking pain-killers in the last 12 months.
Data on deaths is collected by the Office for National Statistics and is not centrally held by the Department. However, figures for admissions where the primary cause was poisoning with a chemical that may be considered a painkiller are given in the following table and broken down by chemical type.
A count of finished admission episodes (FAEs)1, with a primary diagnosis2 of poisoning due to painkillers3 from the provisional data April 2017 to February 20184,5
| ||
Primary Diagnosis and Description | 2017/18 (April 2017 to February 2018) | |
T39.0 | Poisoning: Salicylates | 1,148 |
T39.1 | Poisoning: 4-Aminophenol derivatives | 38,162 |
T39.2 | Poisoning: Pyrazolone derivatives | 11 |
T39.3 | Poisoning: Other nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAID) | 4,082 |
T39.4 | Poisoning: Antirheumatics, not elsewhere classified | 5 |
T39.8 | Poisoning: Other nonopioid analgesics and antipyretics, not elsewhere classified | 175 |
T39.9 | Poisoning: Nonopioid analgesic, antipyretic and antirheumatic, unspecified | 42 |
T40.0 | Poisoning: Opium | 12 |
T40.1 | Poisoning: Heroin | 1,792 |
T40.2 | Poisoning: Other opioids | 8,004 |
T40.3 | Poisoning: Methadone | 322 |
T40.4 | Poisoning: Other synthetic narcotics | 2,528 |
T40.5 | Poisoning: Cocaine | 1,184 |
T40.6 | Poisoning: Other and unspecified narcotics | 514 |
T40.7 | Poisoning: Cannabis (derivatives) | 321 |
T40.8 | Poisoning: Lysergide (LSD) | 91 |
T40.9 | Poisoning: Other and unspecified psychodysleptics (hallucinogens) | 43 |
T41.0 | Poisoning: Inhaled anaesthetics | 11 |
T41.1 | Poisoning: Intravenous anaesthetics | 2 |
T41.2 | Poisoning: Other and unspecified general anaesthetics | 163 |
T41.3 | Poisoning: Local anaesthetics | 24 |
T41.4 | Poisoning: Anaesthetic, unspecified | 2 |
T41.5 | Poisoning: Therapeutic gases | 1 |
| Total | 58,639 |
Source: Hospital Episode Statistics (HES), NHS Digital
Notes:
1Finished admission episodes
A FAE is the first period of inpatient care under one consultant within one healthcare provider. FAEs are counted against the year or month in which the admission episode finishes. Admissions do not represent the number of inpatients, as a person may have more than one admission within the period.
2Primary diagnosis
The primary diagnosis is the first of up to 20 (14 from 2002-03 to 2006-07 and 7 prior to 2002-03) diagnosis fields in the HES data set and provides the main reason why the patient was admitted to hospital.
3Poisoning due to painkillers
ICD-10 Clinical codes relating to Poisoning due to painkillers:
T39 - Poisoning by nonopioid analgesics, antipyretics and antirheumatics
T40 - Poisoning by narcotics and psychodysleptics (hallucinogens)
T41 - Poisoning by anaesthetics and therapeutic gases
4Assessing growth through time (Inpatients)
HES figures are available from 1989-90 onwards. Changes to the figures over time need to be interpreted in the context of improvements in data quality and coverage (particularly in earlier years), improvements in coverage of independent sector activity (particularly from 2006-07) and changes in National Health Service practice. For example, changes in activity may be due to changes in the provision of care.
5Provisional data
The data is provisional and may be incomplete or contain errors for which no adjustments have yet been made. Counts produced from provisional data are likely to be lower than those generated for the same period in the final dataset. This shortfall will be most pronounced in the final month of the latest period, i.e. November from the (month 9) April to November extract. It is also probable that clinical data are not complete, which may in particular affect the last two months of any given period. There may also be errors due to coding inconsistencies that have not yet been investigated and corrected.