§ Mr. WareingTo ask the Secretary of State for Social Services if he will set up a sub-committee of the Committee on Safety of Medicines to make a study of benzodiazepine, to include members co-opted from voluntary and community organisations active in the field of counselling patients who have become addicted to tranquillisers.
§ Mr. NewtonIt is for the Committee on Safety of Medicines to decide whether or not to set up a subcommittee on any issue. In relation to benzodiazepines, the committee has recently completed a review of the problem of dependence, leading to the advice to doctors in "Current Problems No. 21", which is in the Library.
§ Mr. WareingTo ask the Secretary of State for Social Services what further instructions he has given to the doctors of his Department's regional medical services following the publication by the Committee on Safety of Medicines of "Current Problems No. 21", in which the dangers of overprescribing benzodiazepine are mentioned.
§ Mr. NewtonDoctors of the Department's regional medical service regularly attend prescribing seminars at which current issues and matters of interest are discussed. These include discussions on articles such as the one providing recommendations on benzodiazepines contained in "Current Problems No. 21". All doctors in the regional medical service have had their attention drawn to this article by the provision of a personal copy to each of them.
§ Mr. WareingTo ask the Secretary of State for Social Services what savings he expects to accrue to the National Health Service when general practitioners act upon the advice given about benzodiazepine in "Current Problems No. 21"; and if he will consider using such savings to assist in the funding of voluntary organisations counselling patients who have suffered from addiction to such tranquillisers.
§ Mr. Newton"Current Problems No. 21" contains recommendations about the use of benzodiazepines and468W implementation would depend on the responses by individual patients to the courses of treatment advised by their own general practitioners. It is not possible to quantify the savings that might accrue. A number of voluntary organisations helping tranquilliser users have received central funding as part of a widespread expansion of counselling services.
§ Mr. WareingTo ask the Secretary of State for Social Services what steps he takes to ensure that general practitioners understand the importance of the yellow card report system as the means of notifying their concern about the suspected adverse reactions of patients to the administration of benzodiazepine.
§ Mr. NewtonThe Committee on Safety of Medicines is very concerned to ensure that doctors are well aware of the importance of the yellow card system as for reporting suspected adverse reactions to all medicinal products, including benzodiazepines. The committee's leaflet, "Current Problems", sent two or three times a year to all doctors, invites reports of suspected adverse drug reactions and includes detailed advice on how, where and what to report. Similar advice is also included in the British National Formulary, which the Department sends free of charge to all doctors, and in the ABPI's data sheet compendium. Yellow cards are sent regularly with "Current Problems" and are also provided at the back of doctors' prescription pads, and in the BNF and data sheet compendium. They can also be obtained by ringing CSM Freephone.
Last year the CSM and the drug safety research unit jointly launched a red alert scheme to encourage doctors to report suspected serious adverse reactions to new drugs, using a yellow card with red triangles.
As a result of all these measures, the number of yellow card reports received by the CSM has increased steadily to 16,431 in 1987. The CSM is exploring further initiatives to increase doctors' awareness of adverse drug reactions and the yellow card reporting system.