One in four taking pills for depression

A QUARTER of adults take antidepressants – double the amount of a decade ago.

The sharpest rise is among young people, with more than four million under-25s being prescribed the drugs last year.

But a Beyond Pills All Party Parliamentary Group report also reveals mental health outcomes have worsened since the 1980s.

And the cross-party group, co-chaired by MP Danny Kruger and former chief executive of NHS England Lord Nigel Crisp, wants to cut what it says is the healthcare system’s “over-reliance” on prescription medication.

A total of 8.6 million patients in England were prescribed antidepressants between 2022-23, almost double the number in 2011.

Among under-25s, there were 2,477,798 users in 2015-16. But that figure has soared to 4,119,463. One in five children now meet the criteria for a mental health diagnosis, compared with one in nine before 2019.And 450,000 are now on antidepressants, compared with 312,113 eight years ago.

But the campaign says one in eight adults is now registered as having depression.

In the report, Mr Kruger writes: “We have a mental health crisis, and giving psychiatric drugs to nearly a quarter of our adult population isn’t working.

“We urgently need to invest in the social determinants of good mental health: stronger family and community relationships; activities that give people a sense of agency and belonging; and social rather than purely medical models of mental health treatment.”

And Dr James Davies, psychology expert at Roehampton University and the report’s lead author, writes: “The evidence is overwhelming that the way we’ve gone about trying to understand and solve mental health problems for the last 30 years has failed.”

Health Minister Maria Caulfield said: “We want to ensure everyone gets the mental health support they need. We’ve increased spending by more than £4.7billion since 2018/19. We are also increasing the coverage of mental health support teams in schools to reach at least 50 per cent of pupils.”