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March 30, 2004

Drugs

Care to guess how much the NHS spends each year on prescription anti-depressants? £10 million, maybe or perhaps £50 million, but no more than £100 million surely? The frightening answer is that the NHS spent £308 million on anti-depressants in 2002, with 26 million prescriptions being issued that year alone. The problem doesn't really lie with the GPs issuing these prescriptions, but instead with a chronic shortage of qualified counsellors and therapists. A patient can wait on average 6 months for an appointment to see a therapist and the result is that many GPs have nothing to offer patients apart from drugs such as Prozac and Seroxat. As a consequence some 6 million people (about 10% of the population) are now using these drugs. Perhaps worse still are those who require treatment, but remain undiagnosed, and the Depression Alliance estimates their number as being perhaps as high as 8.7 million. So inspite of all the money being poured into the NHS, it is failing to adequately treat a substantial part of the population. A classic illustration that it isn't how much money that is spend that matters, but the way in which it is being spent.

And a final thought, drugs such as Seroxat and other SSRIs are currently under investigation by the UK drug regulator regarding harmful side effects such as violence behaviour and suicidal tendencies.

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Posted by Clive on March 30, 2004 11:05 AM in the category Old Stuff

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