Prescribed tranquiliser dependency

Form Submission

Hello Robert Boyd,

Thank you for contacting St.Helens Borough Council.

We have now received your Freedom of Information Request and it has been
assigned to one of our staff to review and reply to you.

Your reference number for this enquiry is 9716-1857-4841-7399

Please quote this reference in any future correspondence with us
concerning this matter.

In accordance with the Act, a response will be sent to you within 20
working days from the date following the receipt of the request.

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track the progress of your enquiry by logging into your account

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Many thanks

St Helens Borough Council

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Hello

Apologies for the delay, please find the information requested attached.

Kind regards,

Barry Akehurst
Public Health Practitioner

PLEASE NOTE MY USUAL WORKING DAYS ARE TUESDAY TO FRIDAY

Sent: 15 March 2024 17:47
To: Barry Akehurst <[email address]>
Subject: RE: FOI request - referrals for benzodiazepines, z drug
tranquillisers, gabapentinoids and opiods prescribed by GPs

WARNING: This email may be from an unknown source. DO NOT reply, click
links or open attachments unless you recognise the sender and know the
content is safe.

HI Barry

We can supply you with the data to reply to this FOI with the following
caveats

We have sought support from the analytics team with this particular
request which you can share with the below accompanying information.

Data provided is collected and summarised by CGL and will not include any
local data collected by other providers. We sought support from our
central analytics team for this analysis and it was determined that the
best available data we hold that could respond to this FOI is
self-reported drug use at start of treatment (NDTMS dataset).

Caveats for this information:

• This is drug use reported to us by service users at treatment start.
• It does not mean that all individuals are/were receiving specific
interventions for these reported drugs.
• It does not mean that all individuals were directly prescribed these
reported drugs (data includes illicitly sourced drugs).

1. How many referrals have there been to drug and alcohol services in your
local authority in the years 2021, 2022, 2023 for treatment for addiction
to benzodiazepines, z drug tranquillisers, gabapentinoids and opiods
prescribed by their GPs? Please break this down by year, gender and drug.

Criteria: By year

• Count of all referrals in the period (episodes with a referral date in
the period) meaning that if an individual has two treatment journeys
in the same period reporting drug use each time, they will be counted
more than once.  
• Gender ‘other’ where we don’t have a value recorded for gender.
• Drug codes; Tranquilisers (8200-8201), Gabapentin (8705),
Benzodiazepines (2200-2267)
• Individuals may be counted more than once, for example those that
reported both Benzodiazepines AND Gabapentin will be counted in both
columns.

2. How many Involuntary Tranquilliser Addicts are currently in treatment
provided by your local authority's drug and alcohol services for addiction
to benzodiazepine, z drug tranquillisers, gabapentinoids and opiods
prescribed by their GPs? Please break this down by gender and drug.

Criteria: Active clients (Jan24)

• Count of all in treatment at Jan24 NDTMS submission.
• Gender ‘other’ where we don’t have a value recorded for gender.
• Drug codes; Tranquilisers (8200-8201), Gabapentin (8705),
Benzodiazepines (2200-2267)
• Individuals may be counted more than once, for example those that
reported both Benzodiazepines AND Gabapentin will be counted in both
columns.

If you have any questions about this data, let me know and I will ask the
team.

Kind Regards

Rachel Fance

Service Manager

T: 01744 410752          M: 07917 013357

St Helens Integrated Recovery Service, 80 Corporation Street, Lincoln
House, St Helens, Merseyside, WA10 1UQ

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Form Submission

Hello Robert Boyd,

Thank you for submitting your report to us and we can now advise that your
case has now been closed with the following outcome: All data disclosed

Where applicable we have included a short update with this email so that
you can see a summary of the action that has been taken so far to address
the issue you have reported.

Action taken: 1 - Count of all referrals in the period (episodes with a
referral date in the period) meaning that if an individual has two
treatment journeys in the same period reporting drug use each time, they
will be counted more than once. - Gender ‘other’ where we don’t have a
value recorded for gender. - Drug codes; Tranquilisers (8200-8201),
Gabapentin (8705), Benzodiazepines (2200-2267) - Individuals may be
counted more than once, for example those that reported both
Benzodiazepines AND Gabapentin will be counted in both columns. 2 - Count
of all in treatment at Jan24 NDTMS submission. - Gender ‘other’ where we
don’t have a value recorded for gender. - Drug codes; Tranquilisers
(8200-8201), Gabapentin (8705), Benzodiazepines (2200-2267) - Individuals
may be counted more than once, for example those that reported both
Benzodiazepines AND Gabapentin will be counted in both columns.

You can still review the case details using the link below.

Reference: 9716-1857-4841-7399

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St Helens Borough Council

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