Benzodiazepines
Freedom of Information Request
- Reference
- 070/23
- Request Date
- 10 Feb 2023
- Response Date
- 07 Mar 2023
- Information Requested
Under this further request I would like SAS to provide the number of overdose incidents where street Benzodiazepines where noted as an overdose substance for the full calendar year 2022 and for 2023 to date. Please breakdown this info by local authority as done previously.
Further, can SAS confirm if street benzos were noted as an overdose substance, does this mean they were factor in the overdose? I appreciate that SAS may not be able to say if street benzos definitively caused the overdose but I would like to understand if the drug has been noted as an overdose substance this means it was a factor in the overdose.
Other incidents
Finally, in addition to the above can SAS provide the total number of incidents attended by SAS (not just overdoses) where street benzos have been noted broken by local authority. Please provide this in a separate spreadsheet to the information requested above.
I ask this as not all people who have consumed street benzos will have overdosed but may have still suffered significant harms and require an ambulance e.g. I’m sure there will be mental and behavioural incidents induced by street benzos (as described by Public Health Scotland).
- Response
For your request we can provide the number of overdose callouts, code 23. This code covers overdoses by any substance and for both intentional and non-intentional overdoses.
In terms of the drugs implicated, we have fields which show if drugs were assessed to be a factor however there are some considerations with this:
- The completion of these fields are dependent on crews manually inputting the data so there is a possibility of some under reporting of drug types.
- If a drug type is assessed as being a factor we cannot definitively say this contributed to or was the cause of the overdose.
Please see table below broken down by local authority showing the number of incidents and overdose incidents where Benzodiazepines were noted for the year 2022 and 2023 (from 01/01/2023 to 10/02/2023).
' * ' = Indicates values that have been suppressed due to the potential risk of disclosure and to help maintain patient confidentiality
- Response Documents
