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Prescription Drugs

Answer

The methodologies used by the NHS Business Services Authority (NHSBSA) for calculating these statistics have changed since January 2021. Therefore, the below tables include data for each of the last five financial years to address the additional two-year datasets requested as well as reflect the new methodologies used.

The following table shows the number of unique patients who were prescribed benzodiazepines including clonazepam in each financial year 2018/2019 to 2022/2023:

Financial Year	Total number of unique identified patients - benzodiazepines including clonazepam	Percentage (%) of items where the patient has been identified
2018/2019	1,545,014	95.27
2019/2020	1,497,077	95.97
2020/2021	1,368,092	97.16
2021/2022	1,339,417	97.23
2022/2023	1,324,792	97.21

The following table shows the number of unique patients who were prescribed Z-Drugs in each financial year from 2018/2019 to 2021/2022:

Financial Year	Total number of unique identified patients – Z-Drugs	Percentage (%) of items where the patient has been identified
2018/2019	945,510	96.65
2019/2020	897,451	96.94
2020/2021	876,746	98.05
2021/2022	825,382	98.12

The following table shows the number of unique patients who were prescribed an antidepressant in each financial year from 2018/2019 to 2022/2023:

Financial Year	Total number of unique identified patients – Antidepressants	Percentage (%) of items where the patient has been identified
2018/2019	7,590,802	97.92
2019/2020	7,856,297	98.21
2020/2021	7,909,516	99.10
2021/2022	8,359,838	99.14
2022/2023	8,563,148	99.16

The following table shows the number of unique patients who were prescribed opioids from financial year 2018/2019 to 2021/2022:

Financial Year	Total number of unique identified patients - Opioids (includes compound analgesics)	Percentage (%) of items where the patient has been identified	Total number of unique identified patients - Opioid Analgesics (excludes compound analgesics)
2018/2019	5,935,454	96.65	3,036,777
2019/2020	5,730,095	96.94	2,971,092
2020/2021	5,525,899	98.05	2,883,897
2021/2022	5,589,348	98.12	2,927,983

Note: Our reply to the previous question predated the official statistics used here, and used a different classification of opioids using the standard classification used in the NHSBSA Data Warehouse. Comparable data is shown in the final column of the above table; this counts patients without including any prescriptions for compound analgesics such as co-codamol and co-dydramol.

All figures included above are correct as of 5 September 2023 and could be subject to revision once audited reports are published.

Secondary information

Type

Written question

Reference

196444

Session

2022-23

Related items

Prescription Drugs
Wednesday, 27 January 2021
Written questions
House of Commons

Subjects

Tranquillisers Opioids Antidepressants Benzodiazepines

Contains statistics

Yes

Link

View this Written question on www.parliament.uk