Request

I would like to request the following information under the Freedom of Information act.

1.Please tell me how many children aged 17 and under were prescribed anti-depressants or anti-anxiety medication in each of the following financial years?

a) 2024/25

b) 2023/24

c) 2022/23

d) 2021/22

e) 2020/21

2.If possible, please break the figures down into the following age groups. (Please provide separate figures for each of the financial years listed above)

Eg

a) 2024/25

   i.            0-5 year olds

   ii.            6-11 year olds

 iii.            12-17 year olds

b) 2023/24

    i.           0-5 year olds

   ii.            6-11 year olds

 iii.            12-17 year olds

And so on.

3.Please tell me the age of the youngest patient to be prescribed antidepressants or anti-anxiety medication for each of the following years:

a) 2024/25

b) 2023/24

c) 2022/23

d) 2021/22

e) 2020/21

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.

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.

Data Source

The data source was the NHSBSA Information Services Data Warehouse.

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.

Time Period

Answers are based on April 2020 to March 2025 processing data, presented as financial years.

Data is limited to prescriptions where an NHS Number and age was captured, which accounts for 99.03% of all items for this data set.

Please be advised that, in some cases, it is possible date of birth may be recorded incorrectly on the prescription thereby giving an incorrect age.

Drugs

Limited to BNF section 0403, antidepressants and BNF Paragraph 040102, anxiolytics.

Please note: These medicines are classified by their primary therapeutic indication. However, it is possible that they can be prescribed for other reasons outside of this primary therapeutic indication.

The clinical indication of a prescription is not captured by NHSBSA during processing, and therefore we cannot determine the reason that a prescription was issued.

For example, some antidepressants are also used in the treatment of neuropathic pain (e.g. https://www.gosh.nhs.uk/conditions-and-treatments/medicines-information/neuropathic-pain-medicines/).

NHSBSA data is not able to distinguish these cases from those where the treatment is for depression or other mental health conditions.

__ Organisation Data__

Limited to items prescribed in England

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 Information Services Data Warehouse, 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.