By Aoife Connors.
Minister of State with responsibility for Primary Care Róisín Shortall is developing proposals under the Misuse of Drugs legislation to introduce stricter controls on benzodiazepines and an initiative to tackle overprescribing.
She made the announcement following the launch of a report on a pilot project to tackle benzodiazepine use in Ballymum on June 21.
Ranking the issue of the abuse of benzodiazepines as “a priority” of hers, Minister Shortall said she intended to introduce an initiative soon to tackle overprescribing.
“We need to look more closely at prescribing patterns for benzodiazepines in order to identify those areas that are out of line with best practice,” said the Minister. “I’ve asked the HSE to look at this and report back to me.”
She added that work on this initiative was planned to get under way in the coming months, and that it would have an impact on consumption levels of benzodiazepines in Ireland, which she said were “unacceptably high”.
The Minister was speaking at the launch of a report into a pilot project in Ballymun, which involved local GPs working in partnership with an addiction counsellor, to see how innovative approaches could be successfully adopted to address benzodiazepine problems in primary care.
aoife.connors@imt.ie
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