HL Deb 31 March 1988 vol 495 cc861-2

Lord Campbell of Croy asked Her Majesty's Government:

Whether they intend to publish their response to the recent report of the World Health Organisation suggesting over-use in the United Kingdom of medicine and drugs as treatment for health.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Security (Lord Skelmersdale)

My Lords, it is the responsibility of the medical profession to consider the important messages in the World Health Organisation report Drugs for Children. The Government will consider to what extent the report needs to be highlighted in publications on prescribing which are sent to doctors. Beyond that, the report does not call for a response from the Government.

Lord Campbell of Croy

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend for his reply. As the report states that it is children in particular who are receiving more medical drugs than are required, do the Government intend to sponsor some means of spreading information on the subject to the public, especially parents?

Lord Skelmersdale

My Lords, anyone who has children or who has had children can appreciate the anxiety parents feel when their children are ill. I acknowledge that it may lead some of them to expect medicines from doctors. The final decision on how to treat the patient must rest with the doctor, using his clinical judgment. However, I accept that parents and the public should be educated, and the Health Education Authority publishes a leaflet called Minor Illness—How to treat at home. I further expect doctors to discuss the best form of treatment which may or may not include the provision of drugs.

Lord Renton

My Lords, is my noble friend aware that it is not only children who may suffer from taking too many drugs? There is growing medical evidence that if adults take sleeping pills, aspirin or other drugs too often, they will suffer from dizziness in old age.

Lord Skelmersdale

My Lords, I readily bow to my noble friend's superior wisdom in this matter. The Government continue their efforts to make doctors more aware of their prescribing habits. For example, in the autumn a new computer prescription pricing authority will start providing doctors with timely, well-presented information about their prescribing for all patients. The Government expect doctors to pay greater attention to their prescribing habits once the information is available.

Lord Prys-Davies

My Lords, does it follow from the Minister's reply that the department or the FPCs do not currently collect information about the quantity and range of medicines and drugs prescribed to children? On the other hand, if they do collect the information, is it being fed back to the general practitioners?

Lord Skelmersdale

My Lords, the net ingredient cost of prescriptions in the under-16-years-of-age exempt category totalled about £90 million in England in 1986. So yes, we do collect this information. I should add that doctors in the department's regional medical service are increasing their visits to high cost prescribers to discuss with doctors how to improve their prescribing without detriment to patient care. In addition, an experiment is under way employing two prescribing specialist medical officers whose sole task is to encourage more effective and economic prescribing.

Lord Mellish

My Lords, how does the Minister reconcile what he has just been saying with television commercials telling people night after night that if they take a certain pill or drug they are a new man the next morning?

Lord Skelmersdale

My Lords, it is perfectly proper for the pharmaceutical companies to advertise their wares. If the noble Lord or anyone else in the country has complaints about advertising, there is the advertising standards authority to which those complaints should be directed.

Lord Campbell of Croy

My Lords, will my noble friend and his department take into account that it was not the prescribing of drugs for a particular illness that the report emphasised but the fact that children went on taking the drug long after the treatment had ended?

Lord Skelmersdale

My Lords, yes. We are aware of that. This is where the parent-doctor role applies, or should apply, most vigorously.

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