Skip to main content Skip to footer

Medicines Used in Mental Health – England – Quarterly Summary Statistics April to June 2022

Published 8 September 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 April to June 2022:

  • there were an estimated 21.2 million antidepressant drugs prescribed, a 1.17% increase from the 21.0 million items in the previous quarter, and a 3.58% increase from the 20.5 million items compared with the same quarter in 2020/21
  • CNS stimulants and drugs used for ADHD have shown an increase of 6.82%, with an estimated 604,000 items in this quarter compared to the 566,000 items in the previous quarter. This is also an 18.7% increase from the 509,000 items from the same quarter in 2020/21

In the 28-month period since the implementation of lockdown measures during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, between March 2020 and June 2022, there were an estimated:

  • 2.36 million more antidepressant prescription items issued than expected based on historical trends, however, this was not a statistically significant increase for the period
  • 1.01 million 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 April to June 2022 (HTML)

Supporting summary tables (Excel: 89KB)Background information and methodology note (ODT: 242KB)User engagement strategy (ODT: 229KB)Pre-release access list (ODT: 218KB)

Feedback

We're collecting feedback about our publications. You can complete a short survey to help us make our statistical releases more useful and accessible.

The survey takes about 5 minutes to complete. All responses will remain anonymous and you will not be identifiable in any report we produce. You can view our privacy policy to see how your data is used and stored.

Contact us

If you have any questions, comments, or would like more information you can email statistics@nhsbsa.nhs.uk.

Responsible statistician: Grace Libby