Over 1.06 billion items were prescribed in 2014, an increase of 3.3 per cent on 2013 and over 55 per cent on 2004, according to the Health and Social Care Information Centre.

The Net Ingredient Cost of prescriptions dispensed in 2014 was £8.85bn, an increase of 2.6 per cent since 2013 and only 9.6 per cent on 2004. The Prescriptions Dispensed in the Community 2004-2014 report looks at prescriptions dispensed in England by community pharmacists, appliance contractors, dispensing doctors and prescriptions for items administered in GP practices and shows that the average NIC fell by 29.4 per cent since 2004, to £8.32 in 2014.

Almost 90 per cent of prescriptions were dispensed free of charge, of which three in five were for patients aged 60 and over, and one in 20 were for patients aged under 16 or 16-18 and in full-time education.

Notable changes over the period 2013-2014 include: 

• A 47.8 per cent increase, to £44.8m, in the cost of medicines used to treat blood clots, mainly driven by the greater use of three novel oral anticoagulants
• The cost of medicines used to treat epilepsy rose 10.6 per cent, to £486.5m, with the majority of the additional figure was spent on pregabalin and much of the remainder on gabapentin
• Atorvastatin saw the greatest increase in number of items dispensed, with 4m more compared to 2013
• Over 57m antidepressant medicines were dispensed in 2014, a 7.2 per cent increase on 2013 and nearly double the number in 2004.