What we advise on

NPIS provides information, advice and statistics on a wide range of poisonings, involving substances from pharmaceuticals and complementary medicines to drugs of abuse, and household and industrial chemicals.

Types of agents involved in telephone enquiries and that users accessed during TOXBASE sessions in 2009/10 General trends and changes
Poisons change with the times. Recent examples of new agents NPIS has dealt with range from antiviral treatments for H1N1 pandemic flu to alcohol-based hygiene hand gels, and from new legal drugs of abuse such as mephedrone to washing sachets ('liquitabs').

Over the past decade, there has been a small reduction in poison-related patient admissions, due in part to national strategies to reduce suicide and self-harm. At the same time, new and unfamiliar agents appear on the scene, and the patterns of drugs involved and approaches to therapy continue to change.

More than half of enquiries to NPIS involve pharmaceuticals, with paracetamol and ibuprofen the products about which most enquiries are made.

Across the board, the most common cases seen are as a result of drug overdose. Most are accidental, but many are either intentional in the context of self harm, or poisoning associated with drugs of misuse. Many other poisoning cases involve accidental exposure to household or occupational chemicals, environmental poisons and medication errors.

Types of agents involved in telephone enquiries and that users accessed during TOXBASE sessions in 2010/11

Information from the NPIS Annual Report 2010/11