Drugs: Misuse

(asked on 25th September 2020) - 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 National Oversight Group overseeing implementations on dependence forming medicines, if he will (a) list the members of the group, (b) announce when the recommendations will be published and (c) state which patient groups and experts are being consulted; and whether the independent review by Professor Dame Carol Black into the misuse of illegal drugs will inform the implementations.


Answered by
Jo Churchill Portrait
Jo Churchill
Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
This question was answered on 22nd October 2020

NHS England and NHS Improvement have established an oversight group to oversee the NHS recommendations from Public Health England (PHE)’s prescribed medicines review. The oversight group is jointly chaired by Dr Keith Ridge, Chief Pharmaceutical Officer, and Dr Nikiita Kanani, Primary Care Medical Director for NHS England and NHS Improvement.

The membership of the group includes:

- NHS England and NHS Improvement

- The Department of Health and Social Care

- Public Health England

- The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence

- The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency

- NHS Clinical Commissioners

- NHSX

Further consideration is being given on wider engagement with patient groups, charities and people with lived experience, alongside clinical experts, professional bodies and Royal Colleges, including the potential for a separate advisory stakeholder group to support development and implementation.

The remit of the group is dependence forming prescription medicines, as this is the scope of the PHE review. However, the group will be considering relevant evidence and reviews from a range of sources, including the independent review by Professor Dame Carol Black into illicit drug use.

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