Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many people were given an opiate-based treatment (a) within a hospital, (b) on prescription and (c) otherwise in the last 12 months.

Information on the number of people given a particular medicine or type of medicine is not available.

Information on the number of packs of opiate-based medicines dispensed by National Health Service hospital pharmacies in England for 2013-14 is shown in table 1.

Table 1: Number of packs dispensed in hospital pharmacies

¹ Includes Opium, Pentazocine

Source: Hospital Pharmacy Audit Index (HPAI) provided by IMS Health

Information on the number of opiate-based medicines items dispensed on prescription in the community in England in 2013-14 for treatments under the following British National Formulary (BNF) chapters is shown in table 2.

Table 2: Prescription items dispensed in the community

² Includes Dextromethorphan Hydrobromide, Methadone Hydrochloride, Diamorphine Hydrochloride

³ Includes Pentazocine Hydrochloride, Morphine Tartrate and Cyclizine Tartrate, Dextromoramide Tartrate, Papaveretum, Morphine Hydrochloride, Pentazocine Lactate, Oxycodone, Powdered Opium

Source: Prescription Cost Analysis (PCA) provided by the Health and Social Care Information Centre

Information on opiate-based medicines not provided through the NHS e.g. those bought over the counter or provided by private hospitals, is not collected.