Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many prisoners are on methadone programmes; and how many such prisoners have been on methadone programmes for more than (a) one month, (b) two months, (c) three months, (d) six months, (e) a year, (f) two years and (g) four years.

The National Drug Treatment Monitoring System (NDTMS) records the number of interventions in prisons, but not which medicine is prescribed. The presumption is that methadone or buprenorphine will be prescribed.

Figures are not available in the form requested. The table below presents the number of opioid substitute treatment interventions ending in 2013-14 and the average length of time in days that detainees received that intervention. Some detainees will have moved from a maintenance prescription to a reduction prescription and so will appear in both sets of figures. In addition, some detainees will have started and ended an intervention in more than one prison and will appear more than once in the figures.

Unless there are clinical reasons to the contrary, prisoners serving a sentence of more than six months will be expected to work towards becoming drug free.

Source: NDTMS 2013-14

Equivalent figures for 2012-13 are not available.