The Royal College of General Practitioners has blamed limited access to talking therapies for a surge in antidepressant use.

The NHS prescribed a record number of antidepressants last year, new figures from NHS Digital have revealed.

Prescriptions for 64.7m antidepressants were dispensed in England in 2016.

This represents an increase of 3.7m on the 61m items dispensed the previous year.

“Antidepressants can be effective drugs when used appropriately and they do help a lot of patients” said Helen Stokes-Lampard, Chair of the RCGP.