UK Sleep Prescribing Monitor 2026

First edition, version 1.1 : 22nd October 2026

An annual, independent account of how the NHS medicates sleep, and who gets which pill.

Built entirely from public data.

ORCID 0000-0002-5472-9089

Summary

England dispensed 7.92 million hypnotic prescriptions in the year to July 2026, one every four seconds. Four years earlier the figure was 7.86 million.

Underneath that flat total, the composition changed. Z-drugs and benzodiazepines fell 21.2%. Melatonin rose 163.7%, from roughly one in eight hypnotic prescriptions to nearly one in three.

Hypnotic prescribing does follow deprivation, but only once age is accounted for. Crude rates show a ratio of 1.07 between the most and least deprived tenths. Age and sex standardisation raises it to at least 1.25.

Whether the system looks fair depends on what is counted. Measured as the official hypnotics alone, the crude gap between the most and least deprived tenths is 7%. Add promethazine, the sedating antihistamine that sits outside every official count of sleep prescribing, and it is 24%.

What varies otherwise is the system, not the patient. Prescribing varies nearly fourfold between practices, and deprivation explains 0.2% of it.

How to check this

Every figure derives from public data by a published route. Appendix C of the report gives ten spreadsheet steps, with no code needed, ending in three check numbers: a national rate of 123.7 hypnotic items per 1,000 patients, 126.0 in the most deprived decile and 117.4 in the least. If you reach different numbers, please say so publicly. Corrections are issued as dated versions under the same DOI.

Versions

Versions. Version 1.1 (22 October 2026) is the first published edition. It corrects a pre-release version 1.0, circulated under embargo, in which the wrong BNF code had been used for one drug (modafinil). Section 7 of the report sets out the change. No other number is affected.

Declaration

The author previously received speaker, consultancy and advisory fees from Idorsia Pharmaceuticals, maker of daridorexant; the relationship ended in September 2026. He is a Trustee of The Sleep Charity. This is an independent publication. Full declarations are in Section 6 of the report.