Nearly 17 million items for dependency-forming medicines in England were prescribed during the second quarter of 2024-25, according to the latest official data.

The NHS Business Services Authority said the 16.8 million items prescribed was a 0.26 per cent increase on the second quarter of 2023-24.

However, the cost of dependency-forming medicines prescribed during the latest three-month period fell by 1.02 per cent to £93.5 million in 2024-25 from £94.5 million in 2023-24.

Opioids were the most prescribed dependency-forming medicines in quarter two of 2024-25 with 9.85 million items at a cost of £69.4 million while 4.40 million “identified” patients were prescribed the drugs, a 0.76 per cent drop from 4.43 million patients in 2023-24.

Females aged 60 to 64 were most commonly prescribed the medicines, with 287,000 patients receiving them.

NHSBSA also said parts of the country with “greater deprivation” had the highest number of patients prescribed dependency-forming medicines, with 79.3 per cent more patients than the least deprived areas.