Are UK health services over-medicalising anxiety and depression?

3rd August 2025

Former Health Secretary Sir Jeremy Hunt has warned that the NHS is increasingly treating normal life stresses—bereavement, job loss—as medical conditions, signing off around 3,000 people a day with fit notes for anxiety and depression. Since 2019, disability benefit claims among working-age adults in England and Wales have risen by nearly one million, with about 500,000 of these new claims linked specifically to mental health issues like anxiety and depression.

Sick note trends
GPs issued some 11 million fit notes in 2023, with 7.9 million individuals signed off as unfit to work.

Mental health reasons accounted for just 10 percent of all sick notes between January and December 2023.

Despite the majority of mental health fit notes being for anxiety or depression, critics argue that social contact and routine often deliver better outcomes than time away from work.

Fit note data for Scotland
Scotland does not publish centralised figures for fit notes by cause in the same way as NHS England. Fit notes operate under the same framework, but granular data on anxiety and depression certifications across the population is limited.

NHS Scotland staff absences for mental health
More than 75,000 NHS Scotland staff have taken absence due to mental health issues over the last five years, with numbers doubling since 2018.

NHS Greater Glasgow & Clyde recorded the highest total, with 16,452 staff absent for mental health reasons in that period.

Those absences accounted for over 1.5 million working days lost across Scotland's health boards.

Dangers of over-medicalisation
Over-pathologising normal emotional responses burdens already stretched services, diverting resources away from those with severe mental illnesses. It risks labelling everyday challenges as sickness, encouraging people to adopt a "sick role," withdrawing from work and community life, and increasing societal costs.

The case for proper recognition
Meanwhile, workplace surveys show one in four employees take multiple mental health days off, and over a third report reduced productivity due to stress and anxiety. Proponents of early intervention argue that timely fit notes can validate suffering, reduce stigma, and open doors to treatment before conditions worsen.

Toward a balanced approach
Expand NHS mental health provision to shorten waiting lists and offer therapies.

Scale up social prescribing and peer-support groups to bolster community connections.

Develop clear guidelines for GPs on issuing fit notes for mental health, emphasising graded returns to work.

Encourage employers to adopt flexible working and in-house wellbeing programmes.