The number of Britons killed by the pain relievers at the centre of the US opioid epidemic has soared to a record as GPs dish out almost 8,000 packs a day.
The “incredibly powerful” drugs oxycodone and fentanyl have sparked a deadly addiction crisis in America. Now an analysis of official data shows that NHS prescriptions of the same drugs have doubled to about 3m a year.
At the same time, oxycodone and fentanyl deaths in England and Wales have rocketed by more than 400%. Three people a week were killed in 2018. It is not known if the victims overdosed on opioids prescribed by doctors or drugs sourced illicitly. But experts pointed out that the US epidemic, now marked by wider use of illegally