Revealed: A million patients are taking anti-depressants ‘they don’t really need’
Save the prescription pill victims
MORE than one million patients are needlessly taking sedatives and antidepressants, a damning report reveals.
They are left on the drugs for months or years at a time, fuelling a growing epidemic of addiction to prescription medicines.
Research by the University of Roehampton suggests a quarter of a million in Britain have been left on tranquillisers such as Valium for more than six months, well over the recommended one-month limit.
Another 800,000 have been taking antidepressants for more than two years, having wrongly been prescribed them in the first place, the report says. Coming off drugs can cause crippling withdrawal effects, such as hallucinations and depression.
The Mail today backs calls led by charities and MPs for a 24-hour helpline for people innocently hooked on prescription drugs.
Study leader Dr James Davies told the Mail’s Good Health section: ‘This is a scandal for which there can be no excuse.’
The UK has the fourth-most medicated population in Europe when it comes to anti-depressants. Around 800,000 Scots take anti-depressants every year, at a cost of £44million in 2016, as do five million across England.
Dr Davies estimates half of patients have been on the drugs for more than two years.
Of these, he calculates, a third have no clear clinical reason for doing so. He said: ‘The longer you are on them the worse and more protracted the withdrawal will be.’
The dangers of benzodiazepine sedatives – a class of drugs including Valium – are even starker. Benzodiazepines are prescribed for anxiety or sleeplessness, but people who take them for more than six weeks face a 50 per cent chance of becoming addicted.
They are forced to seek help from addiction services frequented by Class A drug addicts.
In 2007, the Scottish Government vowed to cut the number of prescriptions for antidepressants, while helping more patients to access talking therapies. But that has been abandoned.
According to the latest UK Office for National Statistics report on drug poisoning, prescription drugs were linked with 1,313 deaths in 2015, more than the 1,201 deaths linked with abuse of heroin and morphine.
Debbie Abrahams MP, a member of the Westminster all-party Parliamentary group for prescribed drug dependence, said: ‘There is a real and urgent need for more help to be made available. Many patients report devastating persistent withdrawal and other negative effects.’
Stephen Buckley, of the mental health charity Mind, stressed that helping people stop taking drugs has to be a priority.
He said: ‘We hear from lots of people who have been on anti-depressants for a long time and want to come off them.
‘We’d like to think GPs can help, but that doesn’t always seem to be the case.’
Scottish Mental Health Minister Maureen Watt said: ‘Any prescribing is a clinical decision and there is good evidence that GPs assess and treat depression appropriately. Scotland was the first country in the UK to have a mental health waiting times target – a sign of how importantly we view this issue.’
Professor Colin Drummond, chairman of the addictions faculty at the Royal College of Psychiatrists, said: ‘Prescription drug dependence is the Cinderella of addiction.’
He said treatment services had been directed to prioritise treatment for illegal drugs rather than prescription drugs.
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