Prescription of addictive drugs (FOI)

Request

Please kindly provide the number of prescriptions of sedatives, anti-anxiety drugs and opioid-based painkillers (all of those deemed highly addictive by the Health service) issued over the past five years, broken down by year.

Response

The General Hospital does not hold records of number of prescriptions. Hospital Pharmacy prescription records are held as numbers of packs of drugs prescribed. This information would not indicate prescription numbers as the Pharmacy can issue a part pack, one pack or multiple numbers of packs per prescription / patient.

The table below shows the number of prescription items issued by GPs in primary care. ‘Prescription items’ are the separate products which appear on a prescription, acknowledging that more than one medicine can be prescribed on a prescription form.

Please note, data for 2017 captures 11 months only as December 2017 data has not yet been processed and entered into the data warehouse.