Should we, can we, halt the rise in prescribing for pain and distress?
General Practitioners
‘We are a sedated society’: the rise in antidepressants during lockdown
One in four GPs regularly use social prescribing, survey shows
From GPonline: “Almost a quarter of GPs are regularly using social prescribing to refer patients with social, emotional or practical needs to non-clinical services, a GPonline survey suggests. The figures suggest that social prescribing is continuing to gain traction in general practice….
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Complexity in Primary Care : Understanding its Value
This book has been written by Keiran Sweeny. One review says: “Exeter general practitioner Kieran Sweeney presents an elegant ponderosity: that the explanatory model in contemporary medicine needs to be overhauled to accommodate plurality of world views. This book’s strength…
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Explore England’s drug prescription data
The prescribing of psychiatric drugs touches on a range of key issues when it comes to discussing a new vision for mental health. Such prescriptions are running at massive and ever-increasing levels. To give just one small example, a July…
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Social Isolation Predicts Frequent Attendance in Primary Care
Currently, mental health services in the UK are mostly accessed through General Practitioners (GPs), by means of a GP-conducted first assessment of the patient’s mental health. This gives particular relevance to a study reported in the Annals of Behavioral Medicine , the abstract of which…
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People with learning disabilities over-prescribed psychiatric drugs
A study by Public Health England (July, 2015) found that people with learning disabilities are regularly prescribed psychiatric drugs without a recorded diagnosis. The report’s Executive Summary referred to a prior UK government report – Transforming Care – and noted the…
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It’s All in Your Head – True Stories of Imaginary Illnesses
Mental health issues affect far more people than just those seen by psychiatrists and other mental health professionals. And such issues manifest themselves in a wide variety of ways beyond the standard diagnostic symptoms beloved of psychiatrists … ways that…
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Quiz used to diagnose depression is designed by drugs company
Depression is being over-diagnosed because GPs are too reliant on a “basic” questionnaire designed by a pharmaceutical company (Pfizer) which also manufacturers psychiatric drugs, campaigners have warned, as reported in the Daily Telegraph . The easy-to-use nine-question form sets the threshold for the…
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