NHS’s latest ‘Medicines Used in Mental Health’ report shows increase in prescriptions

Statistics published by the NHS Business Services Authority in its ‘Medicines Used in Mental Health’ report show an increase in both number of items prescribed and number of patients receiving these medicines.

The report highlights five categories (British National Formulary, BNF) of medicines; antidepressants, hypnotics and anxiolytics, drugs for dementia, drugs used in psychoses and related disorders and central nervous system (CNS) stimulants and drugs for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).

It covers the period of October to December 2024 (Q3 of 2024/25) for patients in England. All comparisons are made with the period of July to September 2024 (Q2 of 2024/25).

The report shows the NHS has prescribed 24 million antidepressant drugs (an increase of 1.6%) to an estimated 7 million identified patients (an increase of 1%). The cost of antidepressant drugs to £57 million. This was a 6.4% decrease.

The largest percentage increase in items belonged to CNS stimulants and drugs for ADHD, which increased by 8% to 870,000 items prescribed. The number of identified patients similarly increased by 6.1% to 248,000, as did the cost for this drug group, which had 7.9% growth.

Drugs for dementia increased by 2% to 1.2 million items, prescribed to 273,000 patients. This drug group had the largest growth in cost when compared to the other BNF medicine groups, increasing by 15%.

The number of hypnotics and anxiolytics prescribed increased by 1.4% to 3.4 million items, with patients increasing by 1% to 1 million.

Drugs used in psychoses and related disorders reached 3.5 million items prescribed to 664,000 identified patients (an increase of 1.1%).

The NHS Long Term Plan – published in 2019 – focuses on improving mental health care in the UK. It aims to provide more funding for mental health services, especially for children and people with dementia.