Progress at last! The Council for Evidence Based Psychiatry in the UK have pushed through the following actions to tackle dependency on antidepressants, benzos, z-drugs and psycho-active prescribed drugs.
The British Medical Association have been looking into the effects of prescribed drugs with various agencies and the following article explains the actions that were agreed in February 2016 to tackle this problem. The chief actions outlined are listed below:
Following the meeting, the BMA has issued a document which details the agreed areas for action. These include:
calling for a national helpline for prescribed drug dependence
writing to NICE proposing a review of the effects of withdrawal from psychoactive prescribed drugs
establishing a working group with the aim of establishing a multi-disciplinary quality standard guideline for prescribing
undertaking a pilot of the best way to fund and commission local specialist prescribed drug withdrawal services
lobbying for changes to the Prescribing Safety Assessment, part of the Year 1 medical curriculum
incorporating patient experiences within relevant training programmes
proposing areas of additional research to funding organisations, to include research on withdrawal and the harms associated with prescribed drug dependence
It is very encouraging and I hope that all UK SA members will contact their local MPs to offer their stories, peer support (if they are able) and endorsement of these initiatives.
The link to the full article is here: http://cepuk.org/2016/03/07/british-medical-association-commits-various-actions-tackling-prescribed-drug-dependence/