Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what estimate his Department has made of the number and proportion of patients who, having developed impulse control disorders while taking dopamine agonists and attempted withdrawal, subsequently return to their previous dopamine agonist dose or restart a dopamine agonist where withdrawal symptoms were recorded as the reason.

The information requested on dopamine agonists is not held centrally nor held in the format requested and could only be obtained at disproportionate cost.

Dopamine agonists encompass a range of medicines authorised for the management of Parkinson’s disease, restless legs syndrome and endocrine disorders in the United Kingdom.

The product information approved by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) are designed to support safe use of the medicine by providing essential information and supporting discussions between patients and the healthcare professionals providing their care.

The MHRA continuously monitors the safety of medicines on the UK market to ensure that warnings and side-effects listed in the product information accurately reflect the available data. The MHRA is currently reviewing whether further action is needed to raise awareness of the existing warnings about impulse control disorders with dopamine agonists.