Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty's Government how many English patients were on the methadone treatment programme in (1) 2005, (2) 2010, and (3) 2015; in each of those years (a) what was the cost of the programme, (b) how many deaths from methadone abuse, whether of those on the programme or not, were recorded, and (c) how many patients on the programme ceased injecting behaviour and the use of other illicit drugs.

Data on the number of English patients on the methadone treatment programme is not collected in the format requested.

Information on the cost of local drug treatment programmes is not collected centrally.

Deaths where methadone was among the substances mentioned on the death certificate are published by Office for National Statistics for residents of England and Wales for each calendar year, based on deaths registered in the year. These were 220 in 2005, 355 in 2010,and 434 in 2015.

The Adult substance misuse statistics from the National Drug Treatment Monitoring System (NDTMS) 2015-16 report shows that 39% of opiate users who were reviewed after six months of treatment had not used opiates in the previous four weeks. Of those who reported that they were injecting at the start of treatment, 55% reported not injecting in the previous four weeks when reviewed after six months. This data is not available in a comparable form for previous years. A copy of the report is attached.

It should be noted that these are not outcomes for every opiate user in treatment, but specifically for those reviewed at six months within that year, and that not all opiate users are injecting.