NHS slashes opioid prescriptions by 500,000 after a Mail marketing campaign

The NHS has slashed annual opioid prescriptions by almost half one million following a marketing campaign to chop using addictive medicine.

Prescriptions for opioids fell from 5.68 million to five.23 million between 2019/20 and the 12 months ending November 2022, in keeping with NHS England figures.

GPs and pharmacists additionally slashed benzodiazepine prescriptions by 170,000, from 1.25 million to 1.08 million, whereas sleeping capsule prescriptions dropped by nearly 93,000 – from 906,164 to 813,285. 

But worryingly, antidepressant use continues to soar, with nearly 8.5 million dished out final 12 months – up from 7.8 million in 2020.

In a victory for the Daily Mail, the NHS is launching a plan geared toward additional lowering the inappropriate prescribing of painkillers and different addictive medicine.

In a victory for the Daily Mail, the NHS is launching a plan geared toward additional lowering the inappropriate prescribing of painkillers and different addictive medicine

Prescriptions for opioids fell from 5.68 million to five.23 million between 2019/20 and the 12 months ending November 2022, in keeping with NHS England figures

The new tips are designed to help GPs and pharmacists in giving sufferers common personalised evaluations of their medicines. 

It calls on them to work with sufferers to see if a change in therapy was acceptable, comparable to transferring them away from medicine.

But campaigners warned it can possible take ‘months or maybe years’ for brand spanking new providers to be applied, and repeated requires a nationwide 24-hour helpline. 

Only this can ‘save lives, scale back struggling and produce down the pointless prices to the general public purse’, they mentioned.

The Mail has been campaigning for better recognition of the prescribed drugs habit disaster since March 2017.

Professor Sir Stephen Powis, of NHS England, mentioned: ‘We know that sufferers who require prescriptions for doubtlessly addictive medicine can develop into dependent and wrestle with withdrawal, and this motion plan helps NHS providers to proceed constructive work on this house.’