On the up Anthony Devlin/PA

Antidepressant use is at an all-time in high in England, where prescriptions filled for these drugs has doubled over the last decade.

Figures from the Health and Social Care Information Centre show that in 2015, 61 million prescriptions were filled for antidepressant drugs, including citalopram and fluoxetine. This is up from 57.1 million in 2014, and 29.4 million back in 2005.

“The reasons for this increase in antidepressant prescriptions could include a greater awareness of mental illness and more willingness to seek help,” says Gillian Connor of the charity Rethink Mental Illness. “However, with our overstretched and underfunded mental health services, too often antidepressants are the only treatment available.”


UK guidelines suggest that people should be offered antidepressants as a first treatment option for moderate depression, but some critics argue that it would be better to steer people to talking therapies.

In May, Andrew Green, a GP in East Riding and chairman of the British Medical Association’s Clinical and Prescribing Subcommittee, told a meeting of the UK’s All-Party Parliamentary Group for Prescribed Drug Dependence that one of the reasons doctors resort to prescribing antidepressants is because the waiting lists for talking therapies are so long.

Commenting on the latest figures, Vicki Nash of the charity Mind says that while talking therapies are becoming more widely available, they still aren’t available to everyone who needs them. “It is also likely that some areas of the country with particularly high prescription rates simply don’t have other forms of treatments as readily available,” she says.

Read more: If antidepressants don’t work well, why are they so popular?