The NHS recorded substantial increases in the prescribing of a range of mental health drugs in England last year, with a particular hike for ADHD medicine.
It includes a large jump in the number of medicines prescribed for ADHD in 2023/24, which included a 28% rise in adults and a 9.9% increase in children, the NHS Business Services Authority annual report said.
In addition, an estimated 89 million antidepressant drug items were prescribed last year, an increase of 3.3% since 2022/23.
This was also the largest number of patients in a category to 8.7 million people being given a prescription up by 2.1% on the previous year.
The report also noted that dementia drug prescribed increased by 5.8% to 4.5 million and the number of patients prescribed dementia medicines increased by 5.6% to 310,000.
Dementia was also the only category where prescribing was higher in the least deprived areas, NHSBSA noted.
Figures also showed that 14 million antipsychotic items were prescribed to 860,000 identified patients with twice the rate of prescribing in the most deprived areas.
Antidepressant, ADHD medicine and dementia drug prescribing has all been following a steadily rising trend since 2015/16 when the annual report on mental health drugs was first compiled.
ADHD medicines have seen the steepest rise particularly since 2020/21, the figures show, with 278,000 patients prescribed them last year up from 80,800 in 2015/16.
GPs have raised concerns about a lack of shared care arrangements for ADHD prescribing and there have also been intermittent problems with medicine shortages.
In April, NHS England announced it would launch an ADHD taskforce to improve care amidst concerns about rising demand.
Figures showed ADHD was the second most viewed health condition on the NHS website in 2023, after Covid-19, with 4.3 million page views that year
There has been much debate in recent years about whether too many patients are prescribed antidepressants for too long as well as warnings about the risk of withdrawal.
A recent study found only one in six people who stop taking antidepressants will experience withdrawal symptoms as a direct result, a much lower proportion than other studies had suggested.
Another study found that GPs could support almost half of patients taking long-term antidepressants – who are well and willing to stop – to safely come off the drugs.
At the end of last year, a group of politicians, doctors and academics had called for various measures to reduce antidepressant prescribing in primary care including incentives to be added to QOF.
Society is miserable and unfulfilled, country is going to dogs. We need a reset, hopefully Labour will oblige.