Dear Mr Perrott
Thank you for your emails of 4 August to Anne Milton and Andrew Lansley and for your email to me of 16 August about the addiction to medicine reports. Your emails to the Ministers have been forwarded to me to reply and I hope that you will accept this as a response to all three of your emails.
Both the National Addictions Centre (NAC) and the National Treatment Agency (NTA) reports were peer-reviewed ahead of publication to provide assurance that they were rigorous, authoritative documents. The reports provide a valuable insight into the issue of addiction to medicine. It is important to note that these reports do not make formal recommendations for practice or policy; they bring together the available evidence on addiction to medicines.
Professor Malcolm Lader is emeritus professor of the addictions department at King’s College London (which is known as the NAC). The report produced by the NAC brings together the published literature on addiction to medicines. Professor Lader’s work, including that on computed axial brain tomography in long-term benzodiazepine users, is
referenced clearly within the NAC’s report.
The NAC report states that the optimal duration of withdrawal is not established in the published literature but suggests that the timeframe for withdrawal should be within six months for most patients, highlighting that there should be allowance for flexibility for slowing down if the withdrawal symptoms become too disturbing. The report reflects the same rate and dose reduction as the British National Formulary guidance and does not in anyway replace the British National Formulary guidance.
In relation to your specific point regarding the potential conflict of interests by one of the authors of the NAC report, under research governance, it is the responsibility of the lead researcher and their employer to ensure the integrity of academic research. The Department has already contacted Kings College London about the omission of a
statement of interests. If you still have concerns about this issue, I would suggest that you raise your complaint directly with the Principal of Kings College London. The contact details are:
Professor Richard Trainor
Principal and President
King’s College London
The Strand
London WC2R 2LS
Tel: 020 7836 5454
Email: principal@kcl.ac.uk
As you will be aware, the specific actions that need to be taken forward to tackle addiction to medicine will be discussed at a roundtable meeting that Anne Milton, the Minister for Public Health is conveying in September. It is expected that dedicated benzodiazepine services will be well represented at this meeting.
Thank you for you continued interest.
I hope this reply is helpful.
Yours sincerely,
Mary Heaton
Customer Service Centre
Department of Health
23 August 2011