§ Ms. PrimaroloTo ask the Secretary of State for Health what steps he is taking or contemplating to reduce the number of people currently taking benzodiazepines; and what advice is available to doctors about the best methods of withdrawing from them.
§ Mrs. Currie[holding answer 4 November 1988]: It is the responsibility of individual doctors to ensure that they prescribe appropriately for their patients. We welcome the guidance to doctors issued recently by the Royal College of General Practitioners, and the general medical services committee of the British Medical Association. The chief medical officer will shortly meet the leaders of the medical profession to discuss benzodiazepine prescribing and we will consider what further action may be needed after that meeting.
Advice to doctors on the withdrawal of patients from benzodiazepines was included in the Department's "Guidelines of Good Clinical Practice in the Treatment of Drug Misuse" issued to all doctors in 1984. Guidance is also given in the British National Formulary supplied free to all doctors twice yearly by the Department. The Committee on Safety of Medicines reinforced prescribing advice in "Current Problems No. 21" issued in January 1988. This advised that benzodiazepines should be prescribed for short-term use only for anxiety and insomnia and not for depression and also advised about withdrawal symptoms. All doctors should therefore have the basic information they need to help patients withdraw gradually under medical supervision.
§ Ms. PrimaroloTo ask the Secretary of State for Health what is his estimate of the number of people in Great Britain and Northern Ireland currently taking benzodiazepine tranquillisers and sleeping tablets on a daily basis.
§ Mrs. Currie[holding answer 4 November 1988]: We do not collect information centrally about patients and their drugs. I refer the hon. Member to my reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Devon, North (Mr. Speller) on 31 October at column 487.