You asked
I ask under the freedom of information act 2000 for information pertaining to deaths of people in the last 10 years through a mixture of alcohol and antidepressants.
I request under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 for statistics on how many patients have died over this last decade through taking a cocktail of alcohol and antidepressants such as cytalopram or similar. I would like local statistics please: ones pertaining to Nottinghamshire and in particular- highlighted to show those deaths pertaining to patients of Roundwood surgery.
We said
Thank you for you query regarding statistics on deaths involving antidepressants and alcohol.
You can find figures for drug related deaths registered in England and Wales up to 2013 using this link. The information you require is held in Table 6c. This shows that in 2013 there were 113 drug related deaths involving alcohol and an antidepressant, which is down slightly from the peak in 2012. Table 6c provides figures for different types of antidepressants including citalopram.
A breakdown at local authority level has not been published, but we would be able to provide you with the data you require for Nottinghamshire. Unfortunately we do not hold information relating to particular GP surgeries as this is not recorded on the death certificates, so we would not be able to provide information at surgery level. Special extracts and tabulations of mortality data for England and Wales are available to order from the mortality team (subject to legal frameworks, disclosure control, resources and agreement of costs, where appropriate), and you do not need to make a Freedom of Information request. As this information is already available to you via this route ONS considers that S21(1) applies to this request and the information does not have to be supplied under the terms of the Freedom of Information Act. S21(1) is an absolute exemption and no consideration of the public interest test needs to be applied. Do be aware that the figures you require are likely to be very small and may not hold much, if any, statistical significance. If you would like to request a data extract, please contact the mortality team directly (mortality@ons.gov.uk) to discuss your requirements and obtain a cost estimate.