John Perrott asked his MP Cat Smith to table these two PQs:
The replies can be read here. You can also click on the image below to see the response.
John Perrot has since sent this e-mail to his MP, Cat Smith:
Hi Cat,
Thank you for tabling these two PQs. The data is very disturbing.
As you can see by the figures there are currently about 2 million people on benzodiazepines and z drugs, nearly 9 million people on antidepressants, 5.5 million on opioids, 1 million on pregabalin and 1 million on gabapentin. This is in England alone.
Even allowing an overlap for people on more than one of these drugs this means, based upon a population of 58 million in England for which these figures apply, about 20% of the population are being prescribed drugs causing dependence.
This is appalling considering the Department of Health has refused for many years to fund much needed national withdrawal services to help people off these drugs, which can cause permanent damage and severe and long-term withdrawal symptoms. A recent study showed that those on concomitant opioids and benzos have up to a 71% increased risk of early death. Studies also show these drugs cause dementia, permanent cognitive damage, sexual dysfunction to mention but a few.
People are locked into taking them due to severe prolonged withdrawal symptoms and no withdrawal services causing doctors, who do not know how to withdraw people or understand the potential side effects, to keep giving repeat prescriptions.
We have had many whitewash reviews by health departments since at least 2010 and attempts since the 1970s to bring this public health disaster to government’s attention nothing has changed. There are still no national withdrawal services.
Department of Health engagement in the past has resulted in formulaic responses, obfuscation and burying this issue, pretending to engage and maintaining the status quo with no effective action.
I wonder if you would forward the PQs and this email to Wes Streeting on behalf of me and other patients and ask him to request the Department of Health and Social Care take this issue seriously and create national withdrawal services and a national helpline for patients on these drugs long-term. This needs to be specialist help and not a knee jerk reaction to doctors requesting they withdraw patients from the drugs too quickly.
Whatever action has been claimed by DHSC in the past is obviously not working which the figures in answer to your PQs demonstrates.
MPs, APPGs, academics, supporting doctors including the BMA and patients have been campaigning on this issue for years with little progress.
There are PQs dating back to the 1970s on this issue and here we are half a century later and still asking for action.
I think Wes Streeting seems like a reasonable individual and hope he would be concerned that 1 in 5 people are on dependence causing drugs, have become dependent through no fault of their own and there are no withdrawal services to help them.
In addition, the cost of these drugs could be reduced. We were hoping the review by Dr Keith Ridge on overprescribing might have addressed this issue but like other reviews, no effective action followed.
Many thanks for your help on this issue to date. Much appreciated.
John Perrott
(Former researcher APPG for Tranquilliser Dependence chaired by the late Jim Dobbin MP)