Published 7 July 2022.
Summary
Mental health is a key area of the NHS Long Term Plan published in 2019.
This publication aims to describe the prescribing of medicines used to improve mental health in England that are subsequently dispensed in the community. They do not include data on medicines used in secondary care, prisons, or issued by a private prescriber.
This is an experimental Official Statistics release.
Key findings
Between January to March 2022:
- there were an estimated 21.0 million antidepressant drugs prescribed – a 0.78% decrease from the 21.2 million items in the previous quarter, and a 4.06% increase from the 20.2 million items compared with the same quarter in 2020/21.
- CNS stimulants and drugs used for ADHD have shown an increase of 3.14%, with an estimated 566,000 items in this quarter compared to the 548,000 items in the previous quarter. This is also a 18.5% increase on the 477,000 items from the same quarter in 2020/21.
In the 25-month period since the implementation of lockdown measures during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, between March 2020 and March 2022:
- there were an estimated 1.95 million more antidepressant prescription items issued than expected based on historical trends. However, this was not a statistically significant increase for the period.
- there were an estimated 888,000 fewer drugs for dementia prescription items issued than expected based on historical trends. This was a statistically significant decrease for the period.
Resource list
Medicines Used in Mental Health - Quarterly summary narrative January to March 2022 (HTML)
Supporting summary tables (Excel: 90KB)Background information and methodology note (ODT: 244KB)User engagement strategy (ODT: 228KB)Pre-release access list (ODT: 217KB)
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Responsible statistician: Kirsty Gray