More and more Britons are being prescribed potentially addictive medicines like sleeping pills, opioids and other painkillers, raising the risk of a drug crisis like the one in the United States, health officials in London said today.

In a government-commissioned report, researchers at Public Health England (PHE) said evidence showed that "since at least 10 years ago more people are being prescribed more of these medicines and often for longer".

In 2017 to 2018 alone, 11.5 million adults in England - more than a quarter of the adult population - were prescribed one or more of the medicines under review, the PHE analysis found.

The medicines included anti-anxiety drugs called benzodiazepines and sleeping pills known as z-drugs, as well as epilepsy and anxiety medicines gabapentin and pregabalin, antidepressants and opioid pain medicines.

Many of these can be addictive and could cause problems for people taking them or coming off them, PHE said. The report also found higher rates of prescribing to women and older people.

While prescribing of some drugs, like benzodiazepines and opioids, has dipped a little recently amid fears about the deadly opioid epidemic in the United States, others, such as the gabapentin, pregabalin, and some antidepressants, are being prescribed more often and for longer periods.

"This means more people are at risk of becoming addicted to them or having problems when they stop using them," PHE said.

"It also costs the NHS (National Health Service) a lot of money, some of which is wasted because the medicines do not work for everyone all the time, especially if they are used for too long."

An opioid epidemic in the United States has killed almost half a million Americans since 1999, and a report by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) policy forum earlier this year warned that the United States "is by no means alone in facing this crisis".

The Paris-based OECD said deaths linked to opioid use were rising sharply in Sweden, Norway, Ireland and England and Wales.

Responding to the PHE report, Britain's Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency said it is watching the US crisis closely and aiming to take avoiding action.

"We take the experience in the US of dependence and addiction to opioids very seriously and are following ... developments ... to learn from the actions other countries are taking to tackle this issue," it said in a statement.

- Reuters