Pharmacists are to carry out checks on every care home in the country amid fears that thousands of elderly people are being subjected to the 'chemical cosh'.

Simon Stevens, the head of the NHS, will today order the deployment of hundreds of pharmacists to review medication being routinely doled out.

The chief executive raised fears that a generation of pensioners has become increasingly doped up on a cocktail of drugs, causing more harm than it solves, fuelling record hospital admissions.

He spoke as new figures show the number of prescriptions issued for painkillers and anti-depressants have almost doubled in a decade, with 91 million issued last year.

Mr Stevens told The Telegraph: “There’s increasing evidence that our parents and their friends - a whole generation of people in their 70s, 80s and 90s - are being overmedicated in care homes, with bad results.

“Let’s face it - the policy of ‘a pill for every ill’ is often causing frail older people more health problems than it’s solving,” he added, as he outlined a new national policy to review the medicines issued to residents of care homes across England.