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Health explained: clearer warnings about antidepressants October 17, 2026 · 2:39 · With Grace
The MHRA says the changes are meant to make information clearer for patients, carers and healthcare professionals.
Transcript Grace Welcome to Slow English FM. I’m Grace, the station’s health and medicine columnist, with a chronicle about how medicine risks are explained. Grace The UK medicines regulator is changing safety information for antidepressants. The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, or MHRA, announced the measures on 15 October 2026. Antidepressants are medicines used to treat depression. The MHRA says the changes are meant to make information clearer for patients, carers and healthcare professionals. They follow a review by the Commission on Human Medicines, which began after patients and families raised concerns about how two risks were described in medicine leaflets. One change is a boxed warning in patient leaflets. It will point readers to information about suicidal thoughts and behaviours. Grace The leaflets for certain medicines will also discuss sexual problems that may continue after treatment stops. The MHRA says they will refer to this as Post-SSRI Sexual Dysfunction, or PSSD. SSRI is short for selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor, a type of antidepressant. The agency also says a patient safety card is expected to be included in, or attached to, medicine boxes. These are announced measures. Their purpose, as described by the MHRA, is to improve how risks are communicated. The announcement does not by itself show how well the changes will work in practice. The scale of antidepressant use helps explain why clear information matters. Grace NHS Business Services Authority figures show that an estimated 8.89 million identified patients in England received antidepressant prescriptions in the 2024–25 financial year. That figure counts patients, while the much larger total of 92.6 million counts prescription items. They are different measures. The central issue is how patients and the people who care for them can find and understand information about important risks. Updating leaflets and adding a card are the MHRA’s planned steps. The announcement gives the reason for those steps, but it is not evidence of their effects over time. Grace I’m Grace. Thanks for listening to this Health explained chronicle on Slow English FM.
