§ Mr. BurstowTo ask the Secretary of State for Health, pursuant to his answer of 10 July 2002,Official Report, column 1037W, on inappropriate medication, how many people died from (a) suffering adverse reactions and (b) being prescribed inappropriate medication in each (i) health authority and (ii) region in each of the last five years. [71946]
§ Mr. Lammy[holding answer 22 July 2002]Reports of suspected adverse drug reactions (ADRs) to medicines are collected by the Medicines Control Agency (MCA) and the Committee on Safety of Medicines (CSM) through the spontaneous reporting scheme, the yellow card scheme. There are approximately 20,000 reports of ADRs reported to the MCA and CSM through the yellow card scheme each year, of which approximately 3 per cent. report a fatal suspected ADR.
There are four regional monitoring centres (RMCs) that act locally on behalf of the CSM to collect reports of ADRs and to stimulate ADR reporting through local initiatives. These are CSM Mersey, CSM Wales, CSM Northern and CSM West Midlands. The table shows the total number of suspected ADR reports and reports with a fatal outcome received via the Yellow Card Scheme from 1997 to 2001. It includes the number of suspected ADR reports and reports with a fatal outcome received in each of the RMCs. A breakdown of ADR data by health authority is not available. Data from the yellow card scheme cannot be used to measure the frequency of an ADR in a particular region or health authority as ADR reporting is associated with an unknown and a variable degree of under reporting.
It is important to note that submission of a suspected ADR report does not necessarily mean that it was caused by the drug. Many factors have to be taken into account in assessing causal relationships including temporal association, the possible contribution of concomitant medication and the underlying disease.
Separate figures are not available on adverse reactions resulting from patients being prescribed inappropriate medication.
513W
Total number of Adverse Drug Reaction (ADR) Reports and Reports with a Fatal Outcome from 1997 to 2001 Received by the Medicines Control Agency (MCA) and its Regional Monitoring Centres (RMCs) from the Adverse Drug Reactions On-line Information Tracking (ADROIT) Database Year 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 CSM Mersey No. of ADR Reports: 733 711 650 1,161 768 No. of Reports with a Fatal Outcome: 12 19 16 11 15 Percentage: 2% 3% 2% 1% 2% *The total number of ADR reports (and reports with a fatal outcome) received by the Medicines Control Agency includes all ADR reports (and reports with a fatal outcome) received by the regional monitoring centres in addition to other sources.