Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they collect statistics on the numbers of long-term prescribed patients on (1) benzodiazepines and (2) Z-drugs; if so, what those statistics are; and if not, why not.

This data is not collected centrally. Medicines data collected by NHS Digital does not contain patient related information, so is unable to identify statistics on the numbers of long-term prescribed patients on benzodiazepines and Z-drugs.

The Government is concerned about the impact of long term use of prescription drugs. The Department has commissioned Public Health England (PHE) to undertake an evidence review to better understand the scope of the problem of prescribed drug dependence. As part of this review PHE will attempt to estimate the number of people affected, including through prescription data collected by NHS Business Services Authority.