NHS releases new report on dependency forming medicines

NHS Business Services Authority has released its new report ‘Dependency Forming Medicines - England 2015/16 to 2021/22’ today.

The report focuses on four classes of medicines including Opioid pain medicine, Gabapentinoids, Benzodiazepines and ‘Z’ drugs, with some analysis including Antidepressants.

Key findings of the report show that:

In 2021/22, there were 67.7 million dependency forming medicines prescribed in England for a cost of £405 million. This was a decrease in items and cost from 2015/16 where 67.7 million dependency forming medication items were prescribed in England for a cost of £779 million.

Opioid drugs were the most prescribed dependency forming medications in England in 2021/22 with 39.6 million items at a cost of £307 million. The total cost of opioid drugs has decreased by 26.7% since 2015/16 from £419 million.

There were 7.10 million identified patients that were prescribed dependency forming medications in England in 2021/22. This was a 1.16% increase from 7.02 million identified patients in 2020/21, and an 11.8% decrease from 8.05 million in 2015/16.

The most common group to receive prescribing for dependency forming medications in 2021/22 was female patients aged 55 to 59 with 406,000 identified patients. The next most common groups were female patients aged 70 to 74 and female patients aged 60 to 64.

The most deprived areas in England had the highest number of identified patients who were being prescribed dependency forming medication in 2021/22, with one and a half times as many patients receiving prescribing in the most deprived areas of the country compared to the least deprived.

This report is the first in a new series by the NHSBSA. It has been developed in response to Public Health England’s (PHE) Dependence and withdrawal associated with some prescribed medicines review, also known as the prescribed medicines review (PMR), particularly its recommendation that the availability and use of data on the prescribing of medicines that can cause dependence be increased.

To read the report go to: https://www.nhsbsa.nhs.uk/statistical-collections/dependency-forming-medicines-england