Luciana Berger – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Luciana Berger on 2016-01-12.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, pursuant to the Answer of 11 January 2016 to Question 21144, anti-depressants: children, when the capability referred to is expected to be introduced; and whether anti-depressants will be included in the information concerned.

Alistair Burt

The National Health Service Business Services Authority (NHS BSA) has advised that, in December 2015, it initiated a project to improve the storage of transaction level prescription data, including the age of patients and to enhance reporting capability against this data. The NHS BSA anticipates having the capability to provide patient level prescription information towards the end of the 2016-17 financial year. This should contain primary care prescribing information for the full range of medicines, including anti-depressants.

This should also allow the reporting on long-term prescriptions for medicines, including benzodiazepines, which is not currently possible.