Thank you for your request for information about the following:

Request

‘I want to request Information under the Freedom of Information Act, regarding the prescription rates of antidepressants across GP practices in England over the past five calendar years.

Specifically, I am requesting the following information for each GP practice in England:

The number of patients prescribed antidepressants in each of the calendar years 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023 and 2024

The total number of registered patients at the practice in each of those years

The region relating to the prescribing organisation

The practice code (unique identifier for the GP practice)’

The NHS Business Services Authority (NHSBSA) received your request on 1 November 2025.

We have handled your request under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA).

Our response

I can confirm that the NHSBSA holds the information you have requested, and a copy of the information is attached.

Please read the below notes to ensure correct understanding of the data.

Question 2 - The total number of registered patients at the practice in each of those years

Under Section 21 of the FOIA, we are not required to provide information in response to a request if it is already reasonably accessible to you.

The information you requested is available from the web link below:

https://digital.nhs.uk/data-and-information/publications/statistical/patients-registered-at-a-gp-practice

Please see the following link to view the section 21 in full - https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2000/36/section/21

NHSBSA

NHS Prescription Services process prescriptions for Pharmacy Contractors, Appliance Contractors, Dispensing Doctors and Personal Administration with information then used to make payments to pharmacists and appliance contractors in England for prescriptions dispensed in primary care settings (other arrangements are in place for making payments to Dispensing Doctors and Personal Administration). This involves processing over 1 billion prescription items and payments totalling over £9 billion each year. The information gathered from this process is then used to provide information on costs and trends in prescribing in England and Wales to over 25,000 registered NHS and Department of Health and Social Care users.

Exclusions

The Data excludes:

• Items not dispensed, disallowed and those returned to the contractor for further clarification.

• Prescriptions prescribed and dispensed in Prisons, Hospitals and Private prescriptions.

• Items prescribed but not presented for dispensing or not submitted to NHS Prescription Services by the dispenser.

• Items supplied as part of a Pharmacy First consultation or service.

Data Source

The data source was the NHSBSA Information Services Data Warehouse.

Time Period

January 2020 to December 2024, presented as calendar years.

Prescription Data

The data provided is for prescriptions prescribed in England by GP Practices.

Drugs

The dataset is limited to prescribing of Antidepressants (BNF Section 0403). Please note that the condition for which a medication is prescribed is not captured; this dataset should not be interpreted as an indication of medical condition.

Identified patients

Prescriptions are only included if an NHS Number has been captured during NHSBSA processing. 99.14% of patients within the limits of this dataset had an NHS Number recorded. Patients will appear against each practice where they received a prescription. Therefore, patient counts should not be aggregated beyond what is provided in the dataset, as this could result in double counting.

Data Queries

Please contact foirequests@nhsbsa.nhs.uk ensuring you quote the above reference if you have any specific questions regarding this response; or, if you feel you may be misunderstanding or misinterpreting the information; or, if you plan on publishing the data.

Reusing the data and copyright

If you plan on producing a press or broadcast story based upon the data please contact communicationsteam@nhsbsa.nhs.uk. This is important to ensure that the figures are not misunderstood or misrepresented.

The information supplied to you continues to be protected by the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 and is subject to NHSBSA copyright. This information is licenced under the terms of the Open Government Licence detailed at:

http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3/

Should you wish to re-use the information you must include the following statement: “NHSBSA Copyright 2025”. Failure to do so is a breach of the terms of the licence.

Information you receive which is not subject to NHSBSA Copyright continues to be protected by the copyright of the person, or organisation, from which the information originated. Please obtain their permission before reproducing any third party (non NHSBSA Copyright) information.