Dr Davies delivers talk in Parliament on the over-prescription of anti-depressants
- Tuesday, December 5, 2023
Dr James Davies, Associate Professor in our School of Psychology, has delivered a speech today in Parliament calling for the UK government to reverse the rate of antidepressant prescribing.
In England, antidepressant prescriptions have almost doubled in the last decade, rising from 47.3 million in 2011 to 85.6 million in 2022/23, with these figures set to continue to rise.
In his speech, Dr Davies said: “In England last year around 8.5 million people were prescribed an antidepressant compared to around 1.5 million who were prescribed a psychological therapy. And this huge imbalance in provision isn’t because most people would prefer the drugs. On the contrary, we know from research that most people would prefer a psychological or social provision. But that is not what they get, and it’s not what they get because we have significantly under-invested in social, psychological, community-based intervention over recent decades.”
Multiple studies have shown antidepressants to have no clinically meaningful benefit beyond placebo for all patients but those with the most severe depression. National Institute for Health and Care Excellence guidelines state that they should not be routinely prescribed as first line treatment for less severe depression.
Dr Davies’ speech coincided with the launch of the new All-Party Parliamentary Group: The Beyond Pills All Party Parliamentary Group, which has been established to call for more social and psychological provision in the NHS, including social prescribing. APPG members and experts have today published a piece in the British Medical Journal, led by Dr Davies, making an evidence-based call to reduce antidepressant prescribing and setting out how this can be done.
Read the full letter published in the British Medical Journal.
This letter has received significant media attention from the press, including The Guradian, Politico, The Daily Mail and Pulse.