Dear Mr Perrott,
Thank you for your further email of 23 August about addiction to medicines.
Anne Milton, the Parliamentary Under Secretary for Public Health,
announced in a Written Ministerial Statement of 11 May that she would
be leading on work to involve relevant organisations and individuals
to discuss the future action needed. This will be the focus for the
development of recommendations for future policy and practice.
My email of 23 August made clear that the function of the reports was
not to make formal recommendations for policy and practice, but to
bring together the available evidence on addiction to medicines. The
passages you highlighted were intended as a summary of scientific
consensus.
In relation to your comments regarding the declarations of interests
by the authors of the National Addiction Centre (NAC) report, as
stated in my email of 23 August, under research governance it is the
responsibility of the lead researcher and their employer to ensure the
integrity of academic research. The NAC is part of the King’s Health
Partners, which is one of the Academic Health Centres set up on the
advice of Lord Darzi to improve the delivery of healthcare through
world class research.
The findings of the reports were discussed by members of the All Party
Parliamentary Group for Drug Misuse and the All Party Parliamentary
Group for Involuntary Tranquilliser Addiction (APPGITA) at the joint
meeting on 14 June. Input from participants at this meeting informed
the Minister’s decision to bring together key experts to a roundtable
meeting.
In preparing for the roundtable event, the Minister is meeting the
chair and vice chair of APPGITA to discuss the Department of Health’s
plans for the roundtable and hear from them about what APPGITA would
like to see in the future.
I hope this reply is helpful.
Yours sincerely,
Mary Heaton
Customer Service Centre
Department of Health
8 September 2011