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Requests for Diazepam

 

Fear of Flying

Adur health partnership has as an organisation decided not to prescribe Diazepam for patients who wish to take it prior to travel for a fear of flying. We have come to this decision not because we don’t appreciate that fear of flying is a real, debilitating and frightening problem, but for the following reasons.

  • When you take diazepam you may find yourself being sedated and having difficulty focusing. This could lead to you being less able to react and get yourself to safety and help others in an emergency.
  • When taking diazepam some people experience mood changes and it can lead you to behave in ways that you normally wouldn’t. This change in behaviour could lead to difficulties with the airline you are travelling with or with the law.
  • The official guidance is not to prescribe diazepam in a preventative setting for people with phobias.

Other ways to help overcome a fear of flying. 

A number of airlines run fear of flying courses as listed below which will hopefully be useful for you.

 

Procedures and Dental Appointments

We do not prescribe diazepam for patients having MRI scans, other investigative procedures or dental appointments. We have a duty of care to provide safe, consistent, and appropriate care for our patients. We have outlined our reasons for this below: 

  • Small doses of benzodiazepines such at 2mg diazepam are probably sub-therapeutic for most adults for any effective sedation. Conversely anxiolytics can have an idiosyncratic response in patients, and even very small doses can cause increased agitation in some subsets of patients.
  • A patient may take a sedative ‘an hour’ before their assumed procedure, to then attend the hospital/dentist to find their procedure has been delayed, therefore the timing of the anxiolytic being sub optimal.
  • GPs are not regularly involved, skilled, trained or appraised in sedation skills.
  • All hospital doctors, both those requesting imaging and those providing it, as well as dentists have access to the same prescribing abilities as GPs. If a patient needs a certain medication to enable an investigation to go ahead, they are just as well positioned to provide a prescription, either through the hospital pharmacy or an FP10 prescription.

You may wish to discuss next steps with your radiologist or consultant.