Pill-popping Britain: Now we’re prescribed 1.1billion in just a year

A reCOrD 1.1billion prescriptions were handed out last year – an increase of nearly 40 per cent in a decade.

Britons are now picking up three million prescriptions a day, according to data from NHS Digital.

experts say the rise is being fuelled by the pharmaceutical industry overstating the benefits of certain drugs.

An ageing population and greater numbers developing lifestyle-related illnesses may also be to blame.

Figures show statins, high blood pressure and heart failure drugs, and antidepressants are most common.

Prescriptions for cholesterol-lowering statins have risen by 53 per cent in a decade, with 72.6million given out last year. There were also 71.5million for high blood pressure and heart failure drugs – up 33 per cent over the same period. The largest rise was for antidepressant prescriptions, which doubled in a decade to 67.5million in 2017.

Many doctors believe patients are being ‘over-medicalised’ and prescribed pills with dangerous side- effects. Some 1.11billion prescriptions were given out in 2017, at a cost to the NHS of £9.17billion. This compares to 796 million prescriptions in 2007.

Dr Aseem Malhotra, a consultant cardiologist for the NHS, said: ‘Prescribed medications [are] estimated to be the third most common cause of death after heart disease and cancer.

‘This is a national scandal and can only be resolved through a public health campaign to reduce medications people are taking.’

Dr Malhotra blamed pharmaceutical companies for biased research which exaggerates the benefits of prescription drugs.

However, other experts claim they are highly effective and are urging GPs to prescribe them much more widely.

Health watchdog Nice said its new guidelines would recommend that millions more be offered high blood pressure pills – as it did for statins in 2014.

Last month controversial research from Oxford University suggested millions more should be taking antidepressants.

NHS prescriptions are free in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales but cost £8.60 in england.

Marjorie Wallace, of mental health charity Sane, said she was not surprised that more patients were taking antidepressants as it is receiving increasing numbers of calls reporting symptoms of depression and anxiety.

But she added: ‘Antidepressants do help save lives.’

Professor Helen Stokes-Lampard, of the royal College of GPs, said improving public health and better treatments mean people are living longer – so are more likely to develop conditions such as high blood pressure and high cholesterol.

She added: ‘We have a responsibility to offer patients the right medication to manage these conditions.’