<\/i><\/i><\/span>Key points<\/span><\/a><\/h4><\/div>\n\n- This read describes the health care use of people with depression and\/or anxiety across primary and secondary care prior to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. We highlight the broader health needs of these patients, and longstanding variation in use of health care by level of socioeconomic deprivation.<\/li>\n
- In England, almost three-quarters of people with depression and\/or anxiety have at least one other physical or mental health-related long-term condition while almost a third have three or more other long-term conditions. Chronic pain is particularly prevalent among people with depression and\/or anxiety (30.7% \u2013 almost double the rate seen in the general population), as are hypertension and irritable bowel syndrome.<\/li>\n
- People with depression and\/or anxiety are more likely to have additional long-term conditions if they live in areas of higher socioeconomic deprivation. Among people aged 45\u201364 years, 72% of people with depression and\/or anxiety in the least deprived areas of England had at least one additional long-term condition, compared with 86% in the most deprived areas.<\/li>\n
- People with depression and\/or anxiety have more primary care consultations if they have additional long-term conditions, as would be expected. This group are also prescribed more medications, including more mental health-related medications. When the data are analysed by deprivation, the story becomes more complex.<\/li>\n
- People with depression and\/or anxiety living in more deprived areas are prescribed more medications, which might suggest they have a higher level of clinical need. However, they do not receive more primary care consultations than people with depression and\/or anxiety in less deprived areas, despite their potentially higher level of need.<\/li>\n
- Unplanned secondary health care use (A&E visits and emergency hospital admissions) is higher for people with depression and\/or anxiety living in more deprived areas, yet planned secondary health care use (elective hospital admissions and outpatient appointments) is not higher. This suggests that, despite their complex needs, people in the most deprived areas are not receiving as good care as those in the least deprived areas. It is unclear whether this is due to problems with the availability or suitability of services in more deprived areas, or differences in treatment-seeking behaviours.<\/li>\n
- People with depression and\/or anxiety use secondary health care for mental health needs relatively rarely. Nevertheless, we found evidence that they are more likely to use unplanned secondary health care relating to mental health if they live in more deprived areas. We do not see this pattern with deprivation for planned secondary mental health care use.<\/li>\n
- Further research is needed into the inequalities highlighted by this analysis. These are important at any time, yet the COVID-19 pandemic has made the issues more acute. The latest estimates are that up to 10 million people in England have additional mental health needs as a direct consequence of the pandemic. Resources must be targeted appropriately, particularly to primary care services in deprived areas to help meet the needs of people with mental health conditions.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>
Introduction<\/h3>\n
As a result of the wide-ranging economic, social, and\u00a0health impacts<\/a>\u00a0of COVID-19, modellers estimate that the pandemic will lead to additional mental health needs for up to\u00a010 million people in England<\/a>\u00a0(around 20% of the population). Those with existing long-term conditions may face particular challenges, potentially exacerbated by difficulties in accessing health care for the ongoing management of their conditions.<\/p>\nEven prior to the COVID-19 pandemic,\u00a0surveys<\/a>\u00a0had identified a growing number of people with depression and\/or anxiety over the past two decades. To address this, there are\u00a0funding commitments<\/a>\u00a0in the\u00a0NHS long term plan<\/em>\u00a0to improve mental health care services that are widely regarded as being\u00a0under-resourced<\/a>. It is important that mental health services have data available on patterns of health needs and health care use, so they can effectively plan services that reach those with the greatest need. Here we examine the health care needs of patients with depression and\/or anxiety, examining the additional impacts of other long-term conditions (both physical and mental) and deprivation.<\/p>\nPrevious research from the\u00a0Health Foundation<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0others<\/a>\u00a0shows that people living in deprived areas are more likely to have\u00a0multiple long-term conditions, including mental health conditions<\/a>. There is also\u00a0evidence<\/a>\u00a0that for people with multiple conditions, having a mental health condition particularly increases\u00a0health care use<\/a>.\u00a0Public Health England<\/a>\u00a0have previously examined the physical health care needs of people with severe mental illness, finding inequalities in physical health that were exacerbated by deprivation. But for people with depression and\/or anxiety there is an incomplete picture of:<\/p>\n\n- health care use across both primary and secondary care (due to the lack of linked datasets)<\/li>\n
- the combined impact of the number of long-term conditions a person has, and their socioeconomic circumstances on this pattern of health care use.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
Here we use data from GP and linked hospital records for people with depression and\/or anxiety, to observe the prevalence of other long-term conditions and examine how health care use varies across this group by level of deprivation. Our data captures variation in health care use over the 2-year period from 2016 to 2018.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>
About this research<\/h3>\n
We accessed data via\u00a0Clinical Practice Research Datalink<\/a>\u00a0(CPRD) (ISAC protocol number 19_178). Our sample included 103,991 adults in England with depression and\/or anxiety. The presence of depression, anxiety and 35 other long-term conditions was established using previously developed\u00a0code lists<\/a>\u00a0and read codes recorded in primary care records between 1 November 2015 and 31 October 2016. As this analysis relies on codes recorded within primary care, variation in treatment seeking or recording of symptoms\/diagnoses\u00a0between different groups may bias these results.<\/p>\nEstimates\u00a0suggest\u00a0that up to\u00a0half of\u00a0people with\u00a0depression\u00a0do not have this recognised<\/a>\u00a0in primary care. Around one in three people with depression and\/or anxiety\u00a0receive mental health treatment\u00a0<\/a>though this\u00a0varies with the severity of symptoms<\/a>. The primary care records were linked to data on the Index of Multiple Deprivation (as quintiles \u2013 five groups \u2013 based on the patient\u2019s postcode) and secondary care data from the Hospital Episode Statistics. Primary and secondary care use was assessed between 1 November 2016 and 31 October 2018.<\/p>\nCPRD covers a network of GP practices across the UK, currently covering\u00a0around 4.8% of the UK population<\/a>, and is\u00a0broadly representative<\/a>\u00a0of the UK population in terms of age, sex and ethnicity. Linkage is only available for patients within England. It was not possible to obtain linked information for all health care use; for example, we do not have data from community mental health or Increasing Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) services.<\/p>\nAt times in this analysis, we compare the health care use of people with depression and\/or anxiety with that of the general population. The statistics for the general population were produced from a randomly selected CPRD sample of 230,177 adults covering the same period and applying the same methods to capture long-term conditions (CPRD amendment number 17_150RMn2). In this general population sample, 10.5% have depression or anxiety.<\/p>\n
The\u00a0Technical appendix<\/a>\u00a0and our online\u00a0GitHub<\/a>\u00a0repository have further details on the methods used.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\n\nMost people with depression and\/or anxiety have additional long-term conditions<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n\n\n\nIn our sample of people with depression and\/or anxiety, 73% were managing at least one additional long-term condition, and 32% were managing three or more additional conditions. As a comparison, in the general population sample 54% of adults had at least one long-term condition and 17% had three or more conditions.<\/p>\n
The number of long-term conditions a person has was strongly patterned with age, but even among 18\u201344 year olds, 51% with depression and\/or anxiety had at least one additional condition (Figure 1). There was a socioeconomic gradient for all age groups, especially for those aged 45\u201364 years. In that age group, 72% of people living in the least deprived 20% of areas had at least one additional condition. This rose to almost 86% for those in the most deprived 20% of areas.<\/p>\n
People with depression and\/or anxiety living in the most deprived areas are more likely to have other long-term conditions<\/strong>
\nAdditional long-term conditions among people with depression and\/or anxiety, by age and neighbourhood deprivation level, England
\n<\/em>18-44 years<\/h3><\/a><\/li>
45-64 years<\/h3><\/a><\/li>
65 years or more<\/h3><\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/div>18-44 years<\/h3><\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/div><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/ourdorset.org.uk\/inequalities\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2026\/05\/18-44.png\")
<\/p>\n
<\/div>
45-64 years<\/h3><\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/div><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/ourdorset.org.uk\/inequalities\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2026\/05\/45-64.png\")
<\/p>\n
<\/div>
65 years or more<\/h3><\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/div><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/ourdorset.org.uk\/inequalities\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2026\/05\/65.png\")
<\/p>\n
<\/div><\/div><\/div>\nFigure 1<\/strong><\/p>\nEvidence indicates that the link between socioeconomic deprivation and long-term conditions is complex. Socioeconomic deprivation is a\u00a0risk factor for developing more long-term conditions<\/a>\u00a0over time, but people living with multiple conditions\u00a0have also described<\/a>\u00a0how this can impact on their work and so their economic situation.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\n\nPainful conditions are common among people with depression and\/or anxiety<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n\n\n\nThe impact of having a long-term condition will vary between people, depending on the specific conditions, as well as the severity of the conditions and the availability of suitable support. Our data show that the prevalence of all other 35 long-term conditions captured were higher in the sample of people with depression and\/or anxiety, as compared with the general population sample, in line with\u00a0previous evidence<\/a>. We do not assess the order in which these conditions may develop.<\/p>\nChronic pain was the most commonly recorded other long-term condition among those with depression and\/or anxiety, observed for 30.7% of individuals \u2013 almost double the percentage seen in the general population sample (16.4%). Chronic pain was more common among older age groups and was also strongly associated with higher deprivation (Figure 2). Across all ages, chronic pain was recorded for 23.1% in the least deprived areas compared with 39.4% in the most deprived areas. This highlights how patient needs may vary across different populations. Hypertension and irritable bowel syndrome were the second and third most common long-term conditions observed among those with depression and anxiety.<\/p>\n
People who are older or in areas of higher deprivation are more likely to experience chronic pain<\/strong>
\nChronic pain among people with depression and\/or anxiety, by age and deprivation level, England18-44 years<\/h3><\/a><\/li>
45-64 years<\/h3><\/a><\/li>
65 years or more<\/h3><\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/div>18-44 years<\/h3><\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/div><\/em><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/ourdorset.org.uk\/inequalities\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2026\/05\/18-44-pain.png\")
<\/p>\n
<\/div>45-64 years<\/h3><\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/div><\/em><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/ourdorset.org.uk\/inequalities\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2026\/05\/45-64-pain.png\")
<\/p>\n
<\/div>65 years or more<\/h3><\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/div><\/em><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/ourdorset.org.uk\/inequalities\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2026\/05\/65-pain.png\")
<\/p>\n
<\/div><\/div><\/div>\n<\/em>Figure 2<\/strong>
\n<\/em><\/p>\nThe high prevalence of chronic pain among those with depression and\/or anxiety has been previously well-characterised and initiatives to improve care provision have been explored. For example, the Health Foundation\u2019s Q Lab in partnership with Mind, has collated\u00a0practical solutions for improving care<\/a>\u00a0for people living with both mental health and painful conditions.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\n\nPrimary care use: consultation and prescribing patterns<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n\n\n\nAs expected, people with more long-term conditions had higher levels of primary care consultations (Figure 3). People with no additional conditions had a median of 4.3 consultations per year, as compared with 11.5 consultations for those with three or more additional conditions. We found no evidence of an association with deprivation and the number of primary care consultations.<\/p>\n
Prescribing was also associated with the number of long-term conditions. People with no additional conditions were prescribed a median of 2.0 different medications per year, while those with three or more additional conditions were prescribed 10.0 medications. Moreover, there was also an association with level of deprivation. For example, those with three or more additional long-term conditions were prescribed a median of 9.0 different medications per year in the least deprived areas compared with 11.3 in the most deprived areas. Higher levels of prescribing in more deprived areas may be linked to variation in the severity of long-term conditions or access to other treatments. We have shown previously that\u00a0access to IAPT services<\/a>\u00a0is lower in more deprived areas.<\/p>\nThe increase in prescribed medications in more deprived areas, without a similar increase in the number of general practice consultations, may suggest that consultations are not matching need in these more deprived areas (and is consistent\u00a0with similar research<\/a>\u00a0looking at length of consultation).<\/p>\nDeprivation is associated with increases in medications but not consultations in primary care<\/strong>
\nMedian number primary care consultations and medications prescribed for people with depression and\/or anxiety, per year, by number of additional long-term conditions and deprivation level, England
\n<\/em>
- \n
- This read describes the health care use of people with depression and\/or anxiety across primary and secondary care prior to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. We highlight the broader health needs of these patients, and longstanding variation in use of health care by level of socioeconomic deprivation.<\/li>\n
- In England, almost three-quarters of people with depression and\/or anxiety have at least one other physical or mental health-related long-term condition while almost a third have three or more other long-term conditions. Chronic pain is particularly prevalent among people with depression and\/or anxiety (30.7% \u2013 almost double the rate seen in the general population), as are hypertension and irritable bowel syndrome.<\/li>\n
- People with depression and\/or anxiety are more likely to have additional long-term conditions if they live in areas of higher socioeconomic deprivation. Among people aged 45\u201364 years, 72% of people with depression and\/or anxiety in the least deprived areas of England had at least one additional long-term condition, compared with 86% in the most deprived areas.<\/li>\n
- People with depression and\/or anxiety have more primary care consultations if they have additional long-term conditions, as would be expected. This group are also prescribed more medications, including more mental health-related medications. When the data are analysed by deprivation, the story becomes more complex.<\/li>\n
- People with depression and\/or anxiety living in more deprived areas are prescribed more medications, which might suggest they have a higher level of clinical need. However, they do not receive more primary care consultations than people with depression and\/or anxiety in less deprived areas, despite their potentially higher level of need.<\/li>\n
- Unplanned secondary health care use (A&E visits and emergency hospital admissions) is higher for people with depression and\/or anxiety living in more deprived areas, yet planned secondary health care use (elective hospital admissions and outpatient appointments) is not higher. This suggests that, despite their complex needs, people in the most deprived areas are not receiving as good care as those in the least deprived areas. It is unclear whether this is due to problems with the availability or suitability of services in more deprived areas, or differences in treatment-seeking behaviours.<\/li>\n
- People with depression and\/or anxiety use secondary health care for mental health needs relatively rarely. Nevertheless, we found evidence that they are more likely to use unplanned secondary health care relating to mental health if they live in more deprived areas. We do not see this pattern with deprivation for planned secondary mental health care use.<\/li>\n
- Further research is needed into the inequalities highlighted by this analysis. These are important at any time, yet the COVID-19 pandemic has made the issues more acute. The latest estimates are that up to 10 million people in England have additional mental health needs as a direct consequence of the pandemic. Resources must be targeted appropriately, particularly to primary care services in deprived areas to help meet the needs of people with mental health conditions.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>
Introduction<\/h3>\n
As a result of the wide-ranging economic, social, and\u00a0health impacts<\/a>\u00a0of COVID-19, modellers estimate that the pandemic will lead to additional mental health needs for up to\u00a010 million people in England<\/a>\u00a0(around 20% of the population). Those with existing long-term conditions may face particular challenges, potentially exacerbated by difficulties in accessing health care for the ongoing management of their conditions.<\/p>\n
Even prior to the COVID-19 pandemic,\u00a0surveys<\/a>\u00a0had identified a growing number of people with depression and\/or anxiety over the past two decades. To address this, there are\u00a0funding commitments<\/a>\u00a0in the\u00a0NHS long term plan<\/em>\u00a0to improve mental health care services that are widely regarded as being\u00a0under-resourced<\/a>. It is important that mental health services have data available on patterns of health needs and health care use, so they can effectively plan services that reach those with the greatest need. Here we examine the health care needs of patients with depression and\/or anxiety, examining the additional impacts of other long-term conditions (both physical and mental) and deprivation.<\/p>\n
Previous research from the\u00a0Health Foundation<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0others<\/a>\u00a0shows that people living in deprived areas are more likely to have\u00a0multiple long-term conditions, including mental health conditions<\/a>. There is also\u00a0evidence<\/a>\u00a0that for people with multiple conditions, having a mental health condition particularly increases\u00a0health care use<\/a>.\u00a0Public Health England<\/a>\u00a0have previously examined the physical health care needs of people with severe mental illness, finding inequalities in physical health that were exacerbated by deprivation. But for people with depression and\/or anxiety there is an incomplete picture of:<\/p>\n
- \n
- health care use across both primary and secondary care (due to the lack of linked datasets)<\/li>\n
- the combined impact of the number of long-term conditions a person has, and their socioeconomic circumstances on this pattern of health care use.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
Here we use data from GP and linked hospital records for people with depression and\/or anxiety, to observe the prevalence of other long-term conditions and examine how health care use varies across this group by level of deprivation. Our data captures variation in health care use over the 2-year period from 2016 to 2018.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>
About this research<\/h3>\n
We accessed data via\u00a0Clinical Practice Research Datalink<\/a>\u00a0(CPRD) (ISAC protocol number 19_178). Our sample included 103,991 adults in England with depression and\/or anxiety. The presence of depression, anxiety and 35 other long-term conditions was established using previously developed\u00a0code lists<\/a>\u00a0and read codes recorded in primary care records between 1 November 2015 and 31 October 2016. As this analysis relies on codes recorded within primary care, variation in treatment seeking or recording of symptoms\/diagnoses\u00a0between different groups may bias these results.<\/p>\n
Estimates\u00a0suggest\u00a0that up to\u00a0half of\u00a0people with\u00a0depression\u00a0do not have this recognised<\/a>\u00a0in primary care. Around one in three people with depression and\/or anxiety\u00a0receive mental health treatment\u00a0<\/a>though this\u00a0varies with the severity of symptoms<\/a>. The primary care records were linked to data on the Index of Multiple Deprivation (as quintiles \u2013 five groups \u2013 based on the patient\u2019s postcode) and secondary care data from the Hospital Episode Statistics. Primary and secondary care use was assessed between 1 November 2016 and 31 October 2018.<\/p>\n
CPRD covers a network of GP practices across the UK, currently covering\u00a0around 4.8% of the UK population<\/a>, and is\u00a0broadly representative<\/a>\u00a0of the UK population in terms of age, sex and ethnicity. Linkage is only available for patients within England. It was not possible to obtain linked information for all health care use; for example, we do not have data from community mental health or Increasing Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) services.<\/p>\n
At times in this analysis, we compare the health care use of people with depression and\/or anxiety with that of the general population. The statistics for the general population were produced from a randomly selected CPRD sample of 230,177 adults covering the same period and applying the same methods to capture long-term conditions (CPRD amendment number 17_150RMn2). In this general population sample, 10.5% have depression or anxiety.<\/p>\n
The\u00a0Technical appendix<\/a>\u00a0and our online\u00a0GitHub<\/a>\u00a0repository have further details on the methods used.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>
\n\n\nMost people with depression and\/or anxiety have additional long-term conditions<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n\n\n\n\n\nIn our sample of people with depression and\/or anxiety, 73% were managing at least one additional long-term condition, and 32% were managing three or more additional conditions. As a comparison, in the general population sample 54% of adults had at least one long-term condition and 17% had three or more conditions.<\/p>\n
The number of long-term conditions a person has was strongly patterned with age, but even among 18\u201344 year olds, 51% with depression and\/or anxiety had at least one additional condition (Figure 1). There was a socioeconomic gradient for all age groups, especially for those aged 45\u201364 years. In that age group, 72% of people living in the least deprived 20% of areas had at least one additional condition. This rose to almost 86% for those in the most deprived 20% of areas.<\/p>\n
People with depression and\/or anxiety living in the most deprived areas are more likely to have other long-term conditions<\/strong>
\nAdditional long-term conditions among people with depression and\/or anxiety, by age and neighbourhood deprivation level, England
\n<\/em>18-44 years<\/h3><\/a><\/li>
45-64 years<\/h3><\/a><\/li>
65 years or more<\/h3><\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/div>
18-44 years<\/h3><\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/div>
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/div>
45-64 years<\/h3><\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/div>
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/div>
65 years or more<\/h3><\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/div>
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div>\nFigure 1<\/strong><\/p>\n
Evidence indicates that the link between socioeconomic deprivation and long-term conditions is complex. Socioeconomic deprivation is a\u00a0risk factor for developing more long-term conditions<\/a>\u00a0over time, but people living with multiple conditions\u00a0have also described<\/a>\u00a0how this can impact on their work and so their economic situation.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>
\n\n\nPainful conditions are common among people with depression and\/or anxiety<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n\n\n\n\n\nThe impact of having a long-term condition will vary between people, depending on the specific conditions, as well as the severity of the conditions and the availability of suitable support. Our data show that the prevalence of all other 35 long-term conditions captured were higher in the sample of people with depression and\/or anxiety, as compared with the general population sample, in line with\u00a0previous evidence<\/a>. We do not assess the order in which these conditions may develop.<\/p>\n
Chronic pain was the most commonly recorded other long-term condition among those with depression and\/or anxiety, observed for 30.7% of individuals \u2013 almost double the percentage seen in the general population sample (16.4%). Chronic pain was more common among older age groups and was also strongly associated with higher deprivation (Figure 2). Across all ages, chronic pain was recorded for 23.1% in the least deprived areas compared with 39.4% in the most deprived areas. This highlights how patient needs may vary across different populations. Hypertension and irritable bowel syndrome were the second and third most common long-term conditions observed among those with depression and anxiety.<\/p>\n
People who are older or in areas of higher deprivation are more likely to experience chronic pain<\/strong>
\nChronic pain among people with depression and\/or anxiety, by age and deprivation level, England18-44 years<\/h3><\/a><\/li>
45-64 years<\/h3><\/a><\/li>
65 years or more<\/h3><\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/div>
18-44 years<\/h3><\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/div>
<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/div>
45-64 years<\/h3><\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/div>
<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/div>
65 years or more<\/h3><\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/div>
<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div>\n<\/em>Figure 2<\/strong>
\n<\/em><\/p>\nThe high prevalence of chronic pain among those with depression and\/or anxiety has been previously well-characterised and initiatives to improve care provision have been explored. For example, the Health Foundation\u2019s Q Lab in partnership with Mind, has collated\u00a0practical solutions for improving care<\/a>\u00a0for people living with both mental health and painful conditions.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>
\n\n\nPrimary care use: consultation and prescribing patterns<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n\n\n\n\n\nAs expected, people with more long-term conditions had higher levels of primary care consultations (Figure 3). People with no additional conditions had a median of 4.3 consultations per year, as compared with 11.5 consultations for those with three or more additional conditions. We found no evidence of an association with deprivation and the number of primary care consultations.<\/p>\n
Prescribing was also associated with the number of long-term conditions. People with no additional conditions were prescribed a median of 2.0 different medications per year, while those with three or more additional conditions were prescribed 10.0 medications. Moreover, there was also an association with level of deprivation. For example, those with three or more additional long-term conditions were prescribed a median of 9.0 different medications per year in the least deprived areas compared with 11.3 in the most deprived areas. Higher levels of prescribing in more deprived areas may be linked to variation in the severity of long-term conditions or access to other treatments. We have shown previously that\u00a0access to IAPT services<\/a>\u00a0is lower in more deprived areas.<\/p>\n
The increase in prescribed medications in more deprived areas, without a similar increase in the number of general practice consultations, may suggest that consultations are not matching need in these more deprived areas (and is consistent\u00a0with similar research<\/a>\u00a0looking at length of consultation).<\/p>\n
Deprivation is associated with increases in medications but not consultations in primary care<\/strong>
\nMedian number primary care consultations and medications prescribed for people with depression and\/or anxiety, per year, by number of additional long-term conditions and deprivation level, England
\n<\/em>
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/ourdorset.org.uk\/inequalities\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2026\/05\/no-conditions.png\")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/ourdorset.org.uk\/inequalities\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2026\/05\/1-2-conditions.png\")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/ourdorset.org.uk\/inequalities\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2026\/05\/3-conditions.png\")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/ourdorset.org.uk\/inequalities\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2026\/05\/no-conditions-prescriptions.png\")
<\/p>\n