Prescription Drugs
(asked on 1st September 2023) - View Source
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the Answer of 27 January 2021 to Question 137239 on Prescription Drugs, what information his Department holds on the number of unique patients who have been prescribed drugs categorised under the drug groups (a) benzodiazepines including clonazepam, (b) z-drugs, (c) antidepressants and (d) opioids in the each of the last two years.
The methodologies used by the NHS Business Services Authority (NHSBSA) for calculating these statistics have changed since January 2021. Therefore, the below tables include data for each of the last five financial years to address the additional two-year datasets requested as well as reflect the new methodologies used.
The following table shows the number of unique patients who were prescribed benzodiazepines including clonazepam in each financial year 2018/2019 to 2022/2023:
Financial Year | Total number of unique identified patients - benzodiazepines including clonazepam | Percentage (%) of items where the patient has been identified |
2018/2019 | 1,545,014 | 95.27 |
2019/2020 | 1,497,077 | 95.97 |
2020/2021 | 1,368,092 | 97.16 |
2021/2022 | 1,339,417 | 97.23 |
2022/2023 | 1,324,792 | 97.21 |
The following table shows the number of unique patients who were prescribed Z-Drugs in each financial year from 2018/2019 to 2021/2022:
Financial Year | Total number of unique identified patients – Z-Drugs | Percentage (%) of items where the patient has been identified |
2018/2019 | 945,510 | 96.65 |
2019/2020 | 897,451 | 96.94 |
2020/2021 | 876,746 | 98.05 |
2021/2022 | 825,382 | 98.12 |
The following table shows the number of unique patients who were prescribed an antidepressant in each financial year from 2018/2019 to 2022/2023:
Financial Year | Total number of unique identified patients – Antidepressants | Percentage (%) of items where the patient has been identified |
2018/2019 | 7,590,802 | 97.92 |
2019/2020 | 7,856,297 | 98.21 |
2020/2021 | 7,909,516 | 99.10 |
2021/2022 | 8,359,838 | 99.14 |
2022/2023 | 8,563,148 | 99.16 |
The following table shows the number of unique patients who were prescribed opioids from financial year 2018/2019 to 2021/2022:
Financial Year | Total number of unique identified patients - Opioids (includes compound analgesics) | Percentage (%) of items where the patient has been identified | Total number of unique identified patients - Opioid Analgesics (excludes compound analgesics) |
2018/2019 | 5,935,454 | 96.65 | 3,036,777 |
2019/2020 | 5,730,095 | 96.94 | 2,971,092 |
2020/2021 | 5,525,899 | 98.05 | 2,883,897 |
2021/2022 | 5,589,348 | 98.12 | 2,927,983 |
Note: Our reply to the previous question predated the official statistics used here, and used a different classification of opioids using the standard classification used in the NHSBSA Data Warehouse. Comparable data is shown in the final column of the above table; this counts patients without including any prescriptions for compound analgesics such as co-codamol and co-dydramol.
All figures included above are correct as of 5 September 2023 and could be subject to revision once audited reports are published.