Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many people were prescribed antidepressants in (a) 2010, (b) 2019 and (c) 2020.
The following table shows the number of unique patients prescribed antidepressants on a National Health Service prescription and dispensed in the community in England for the calendar years 2019 and 2020 to October, which is the latest data held. No patient level data is held for 2010.
Calendar year | Total number of unique identified patients |
2019 | 7,800,136 |
2020 to October | 7,473,047 |
Note:
NHS Business Services Authority holds patient identifiable data relating to drugs prescribed in England and dispensed within a community setting. No data is captured on the prescription form about the clinical indication for which a prescription is intended. The list of antidepressants which have been identified for this response is based on British National Formulary (BNF) chapter 04 section 03 (Antidepressant Drugs) using the classification system prior to BNF edition 70.