The number of patients coded as having depression has increased to almost 10%, according to new data from NHS Digital.
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In their summary of general practice QOF activity, they revealed that depression was the condition that saw the greatest year-on-year increase in QOF-recorded prevalence out of all QOF indicators – from 9.1% in 2016/17 to 9.9% in 2017/18.
The increase means depression is now second overall for all QOF conditions, overtaking obesity, which had a prevalence of 9.8%.
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Hypertension remains the indicator with the highest overall prevalence at 13.9%.
Osteoporosis saw the biggest change in exception rate, up by 2.2 percentage points to 19.4%. Cardiovascular disease experienced the biggest fall in exception rate, at 0.9 percentage points, but still remains the indicator group with the highest exception rate at 31.4%.
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The number of practices achieving the maximum 559 also increased for 2017/18 to 12.5%, up from 11.9% the previous year.
