Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps his Department has taken since 2009 to review policy on addiction to prescription medication; and what the total identifiable costs have been of this review process.

The Department has been reviewing policy on addiction to prescription medicine over this period, and the Government’s Drug Strategy, published in December 2010, highlights our commitment to reduce dependence on prescription and over the counter medicines.

In 2009, the Department identified a lack of information on this important subject. The Department commissioned a literature review from the National Addiction Centre and a report from the National Treatment Agency for Substance Misuse (NTA) which interrogated data on specialist treatment and surveyed local commissioners and specialist treatment providers. These reports were peer reviewed and published in May 2011. The cost to the Department for the National Addiction Centre literature review was £9,750 and the cost for the NTA review was £80,000.

The reports informed the discussions of roundtable meetings of expert stakeholders which were convened by the Minister for Public Health to agree action to tackle addiction to medicines. The roundtable produced a consensus statement, endorsed by the Royal College of General Practitioners, the Royal College of Psychiatrists and other organisations which was published in January 2013. The only direct cost to the Department concerning the roundtables, and other meetings, was £1,928.09 in travel expenses for non-Departmental staff.

Other Departmental costs associated with reviewing policy on addiction to prescription medicine are not separately identifiable.

Public Health England (PHE) organised a seminar in February 2013 to improve the commissioning of services to treat addiction to medicine, and following the seminar, in June 2013 published a guide for the National Health Service and local authorities on commissioning treatment for dependence on prescription and over-the-counter medicines.

The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency published in March 2013 a learning module on benzodiazepines which includes advice for prescribers on preventing and treating dependence on these medicines.

In July 2014, with the approval of the Department and the devolved administrations, PHE launched a public consultation on whether there should be an update to the 2007 United Kingdom clinical guidelines on drug misuse and dependence. The guidelines include advice on treating dependence on benzodiazepines.