PATIENTS taking potent anti-anxiety medication and sleeping pills could have their details subtly shared among health professionals in a bid to tackle the abuse of addictive prescription drugs.
The Health Service Executive said it is exploring ways to use so-called "soft information" if there are concerns about patients becoming dependent on some of the most commonly prescribed medicines on the market.
It is seeking a way to ensure people needing drugs in the popular benzodiazephine family are not attending other medics to multiply their prescription.
The HSE’s assistant national director with responsibility for social inclusion, Alice O’Flynn, said it would be safer if details could be passed between doctors as soon as worries were raised.
However, its ambitions have been thwarted by privacy issues.
"Although there have been a number of meetings in 2009 between the respective regulators and the HSE to develop a clear pathway to address concerns in relation to prescribing in this arena, it remains challenging.
"The HSE is continuing to explore a mechanism to share "soft information" data so prescribing concerns can be addressed at a much earlier time-point to a formal complaint to the respective regulatory authorities," she said.
Ms O’Flynn explained the situation in a letter to the Dáil Public Accounts Committee (PAC). This arose out of her appearance before it in late 2009. She said benzodiazephine prescription reports are available to GPs in the medical card scheme (GMS). This is through the primary care reimbursement service (PCRS) website.
But the easily accessible information this service provides only allows GPs to compare their own prescribing patterns against the habits of the other 1,917 signed-up doctors. This data is broken down by certain patient categories.
It takes two months before patient information arrives onto this system, which is the concern for the HSE. Guidelines produced in 2002 said this category of medication should only be prescribed for between two and four weeks.
Doctors in the PCRS can initiate inquiries on individual patients if they have specific concerns.
However, patients who are prescribed these types of medication are not automatically flagged. This is because of worries expressed by the Data Protection Commissioner.
In her appearance before the PAC Ms O’Flynn said while there was a limited ability to monitor the prescription habits of those within the GMS the GPs who operate outside it are not tracked by the HSE. She told the committee addiction specialists have highlighted this problem and is working with the Irish College of General Practitioners (ICGP) to find a solution.
"I understand that, within the HSE, we do not have the authority to assist, review or monitor in any way what GPs are prescribing, except through the ICGP, the GP body," she said.
"Our colleagues in the addiction services are concerned about it in terms of services in the emergency departments and the people who are presenting therein."
a d v e r t i s e m e n t
This appeared in the printed version of the Irish Examiner Monday, March 15, 2010
