British Medical Journal publishes letter calling on government to reduce rate of antidepressant prescribing
Betsy Goodfellow | December 5, 2023 | News story | Medical Communications | British Medical Journal, Neurology, antidepressants, over-prescribing
A group of medical professionals and politicians have published an open letter in the British Medical Journal which calls on the Government to commit to a reversal in the rate of prescribing of antidepressants.
This letter follows statistics that demonstrate that the number of antidepressant prescriptions has almost doubled in England in the last ten years, one in five adults in England are now prescribed antidepressants annually regardless of adverse effects, the number of antidepressant prescriptions is expected to rise by 5-10% each year for the next ten years, and the unnecessary prescribing of the drugs costs NHS England approximately £58m each year.
The call for the reversal in prescribing these drugs comes as part of the launch of the Beyond Pills All Party Parliamentary Group in Westminster, UK. This group aims to move UK healthcare past its over-reliance on pills, encouraging a combination of social prescribing, lifestyle medicine and psychosocial interventions along with safe deprescribing and a reduction in unnecessary prescriptions.
Lord Crisp, co-chair of the group and former CEO of the NHS, commented: “The high rate of prescribing of antidepressants over recent years is a clear example of over-medicalisation, where patients are often prescribed unnecessary and potentially harmful drugs instead of tackling the root causes of their suffering, such as loneliness, poverty or poor housing. The Beyond Pills APPG is being launched to raise awareness of this public health issue. It will focus on promoting proven alternatives to pills such as social prescribing and psychological therapies, as well as local services to help people withdraw safely from these medicines. It will work alongside others to change the way we all think about health, and address these wider social determinants of poor health.”
Betsy Goodfellow
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