Prescription items for antidepressants saw the greatest numeric rise in 2015, according to a report by the Health and Social Care Information Centre (HSCIC).

In ‘Prescriptions Dispensed in the Community 2005-2015’, the HSCIC says that 61.0m antidepressant items were prescribed in England in 2015 – 31.6m (107.6 per cent) more than in 2005 and 3.9m (6.8 per cent) more than in 2014.

The report also finds that more than 1.08bn prescription items were dispensed overall in 2015 – a 1.8 per cent increase on the previous year and a 50.4 per cent increase on the same figure a decade ago. For the ninth year running, diabetes drugs continued to cost the NHS the most (£936.7m).