Young people suffering from mental health problems and conditions like ADHD could be prescribed gym memberships, gardening clubs and other social activities instead of medication alone as part of government welfare and health reforms.
Professor Peter Fonagy, who led a major government review into rising levels of anxiety, depression, ADHD and autism, told The i Paper that younger people “don’t want the diagnosis. They want support”.
Fonagy, a leading professor at University College London (UCL), said young people should be given better access to mental health services, such as counselling, before diagnosis – and encouraged to get more exercise.
“Literally hundreds of studies [show] what benefit exercise brings to mental health,” Fonagy said. “It is probably more effective than most antidepressants. And yet seven million people are on antidepressants. How many of them exercise?”
Labour’s youth employment tsar, Alan Milburn, who is expected to publish his report on the Neet (not in employment, education or training) crisis later in November, is understood to have paid close attention to these recommendations. His review is likely to shape the Labour’s future reforms on youth employment and welfare.
Rates of conditions such as anxiety and depression in people aged 16-24 have risen by more than a third in a decade, from 18.9 per cent in 2014 to 25.8 per cent in 2024. Young women are almost twice as likely as young men to report common mental health conditions.
According to Fonagy’s report, the number of antidepressant prescriptions in England increased from 47.3 million in 2011 to 85.6 million in 2022–23.
Nearly one million young people aged 16–24 are Neets, and the cost of out-of-work and disability benefits for this age group is £8.1bn. One in five of Neets report having a mental health condition.
Meanwhile, ADHD prescriptions have risen to record levels, with a 40 per cent rise in adults taking central nervous system (CNS) stimulants and other drugs over the last year, from from 190,000 in 2024-25 to 267,000 in 2025-26, NHS data shows.
Fonagy’s review suggests more people should be “deprescribed” – where healthcare professionals support patients to reduce or stop taking medication.
Fonagy and the vice chair of his review, leading psychiatrist Professor Sir Simon Wessely, both agree that young people’s “mental distress” is “real” and not a result of overdiagnosis.
However, Wessely, the former head of the Royal Society of Medicine, said that a diagnosis alone can “do harm”.
“You could get a diagnosis of autism or ADHD, but if you’re told this is a lifelong disorder, you will now never be able to do A, B, C, D, and E, then that could be really harmful,” he said.
Wessely added that conditions like anxiety, depression and ADHD can “fluctuate”, which is why other kinds of support, beyond a diagnosis and medication, may better help young people.
He added: “I saw a young man recently – a student – who is very, very lonely and has been given a diagnosis of depression. But my view as a consulting psychiatrist is that if he was depressed, it would be very mild. Antidepressants weren’t working because they only work if you are depressed.
“My feeling was that this young man’s loneliness would be better solved by social prescribing and encouraging him to go and join a society, to paint, volunteer or play football.”
In their review, Fonagy and Wessely say social prescribing of non-medical services like art classes, theatre groups, gardening clubs, and sport and leisure centre programmes, as well as support with isolation, debt advice and housing issues, could help tackle the issue.
The review cited the example of Stort Valley and Villages Children and Young People service in Hertfordshire, where young people aged 11-25 are offered early support after being referred by their GP.
However, they note that these measures are not proven to “prevent diagnosable mental illness” even though they may ease it.
Milburn is expected to recommend wholesale changes to the welfare system to support young people into work and cut the benefits bill.
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