Finasteride in the UK: prescriptions uncounted
No official figure shows how many UK men take finasteride 1 mg, as it's sold privately. Its pack warns sexual problems can last after stopping, called PFS.
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No official figure shows how many people in the UK take finasteride for hair loss. The 1 mg tablet is sold privately, outside NHS statistics, and its pack warns that sexual problems can continue after stopping, which patients call post-finasteride syndrome (PFS).
Without that figure, nobody can work out how often the lasting problems happen. The UK medicines regulator, the MHRA, said in May 2026 that accurate numbers for the 1 mg dose aren’t available.
The story in 3 lines
- The NHS publishes how many of its prescriptions for finasteride are dispensed in England each year (NHS figures).
- The 1 mg tablet for hair loss is only available privately, so “accurate prescription numbers are not available” (MHRA, May 2026).
- Nobody has measured how often its sexual side effects last after stopping (UK leaflet: “Frequency unknown”). Patients call them PFS.
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Robb Dixon was in his early twenties when he ordered finasteride from the website of a high-street pharmacy. He is now SIDEfxHUB’s communications director.
He filled in a short online form, he told Good Morning Britain, and the tablets came in the post. He took them for six months, and says his health collapsed within days of stopping. At first he put it down to freak bad luck: “I thought that I was one in a million.”
How many people take finasteride in the UK?
Nobody can say. The published count is of NHS prescriptions, and the hair loss dose is barely in it.
In 2025, finasteride was dispensed on NHS prescriptions in England about 4.5 million times, a health minister told the House of Lords. Nearly all of it was the 5 mg tablet, the dose licensed for an enlarged prostate.
That number counts prescriptions. Someone on a repeat prescription shows up many times a year, so it can’t tell you how many patients there are. It also covers England only.
Finasteride in England in 2025: what the official figures count
Why aren’t private finasteride prescriptions counted?
The NHS figures are built from the prescriptions pharmacies send in to be paid. The body that compiles them says private prescriptions are excluded.
The 1 mg tablet does have its own row. For the whole of 2025, the NHS tables show it dispensed 13 times in England.
The rest is private. The MHRA says the 1 mg dose comes from private hair loss clinics or, more often, from online pharmacies. That’s how Robb got his.
Each pharmacy has to keep its own record of every private sale.
SIDEfxHUB looked for a rule that sends those records to a public body, and for a public body that publishes a total. As of October 2026, we hadn’t found either. That’s our own search, so if you know of one, write to the press address in the box above and we’ll correct this page.
Why does the missing number matter?
Reports of a side effect only tell you how common it is if you know how many people take the medicine. In February 2026 a health minister was asked about reports of PFS. They can’t show how often a reaction happens, she replied, as “neither the total number of reactions occurring, nor the number of patients using the drug, is known”.
The MHRA met the same problem in its 2024 safety review. Up to January 2023, the review counted 226 reports of sexual problems linked to the 1 mg dose or to hair loss, against 110 for the 5 mg dose or an enlarged prostate. They came through the Yellow Card scheme, where patients and doctors report suspected side effects.
A different number of reports, it cautioned, “does not necessarily mean a different level of risk”. It couldn’t be sure how widely the 1 mg dose was used, because it had no accurate figures for private prescribing.
The warnings have grown since then. The UK leaflet lists erection problems that persist after stopping under “Frequency unknown”.
For some people it has lasted years after stopping. Nobody knows yet who will be affected, or whether it will ease.
What can I do?
These medicines help many people. If you have side effects, that’s a decision for you and your prescriber.
If you develop low mood, depression or suicidal thoughts on the 1 mg dose, the leaflet says to stop taking it and contact your doctor as soon as possible. If you’re struggling, the Samaritans are free to call on 116 123, day or night.
If you bought finasteride privately, your order history is your record. Write the dates down before you see a doctor: “Finasteride 1 mg from January 2023, last tablet March 2024.”
Report it: it helps everyone
A doctor’s note helps you. A report to the medicines regulator helps everyone else: it is how patterns get noticed.
- No proof needed. A suspicion is enough, even years after stopping.
- Where: the Yellow Card scheme in the UK, MedWatch in the US.
- Use the right words. If symptoms continued after stopping, write Post 5-alpha-reductase inhibitor syndrome (MedDRA 10082430).
Our reporting guide walks you through it
What else do people ask?
Is finasteride available on the NHS? The 5 mg tablet for an enlarged prostate is. The 1 mg tablet for hair loss isn’t: the pharmacy regulator says it can’t be prescribed for hair loss under NHS primary care services. Private clinics and registered pharmacies supply it instead, which is why the NHS tables show almost none.
Are finasteride’s side effects counted? Only the ones somebody reports. Yellow Card reports are voluntary, and a 2019 MHRA bulletin said it is estimated that only about 1 in 10 serious reactions is reported. Our page on post-finasteride syndrome explains what’s known about the lasting ones.
Where can I check the NHS figures myself? The NHS Business Services Authority publishes its Prescription Cost Analysis for England every year, free to download, with a row for each medicine and strength. The MHRA’s May 2026 bulletin cites OpenPrescribing, a free site built on the NHS’s monthly data about prescriptions issued by GPs in England. Both count NHS prescriptions.
Robb thought he was one in a million, and ten years on nobody can tell him the real figure. If your problems stayed after you stopped, report it: a Yellow Card is the one count you can add to yourself.
Sources
- MHRA, Finasteride and dutasteride: updated safety warnings for psychiatric side effects and sexual dysfunction, Drug Safety Update, 11 May 2026. Section “Usage”: “As finasteride 1mg is not prescribed on the NHS and is only available by private prescription, accurate prescription numbers are not available.” The same section cites OpenPrescribing in a footnote.
- MHRA, Safety review of finasteride: public assessment report, April 2024. Section 3.1: the number of patients on the 1 mg dose is hard to establish, and it is obtained “from private hair loss clinics or more often, purchased from online pharmacies”. Section 5.2: 375 Yellow Card reports of sexual dysfunction from 27 November 1992 to 5 January 2023. Of these, 226 related to the 1 mg dose and/or alopecia, 110 to the 5 mg dose and/or the prostate, and 39 to an unknown dose. The same section has the caution on comparing the two doses, “lack of denominator” and “accurate private prescribing data is not available”. Published with the review page, 29 April 2024.
- UK Parliament, written question HL15306, Lord Alton of Liverpool, answered by Baroness Merron for the Department of Health and Social Care on 23 March 2026. NHS prescription items of finasteride dispensed in the community in England: 2,717,411 in 2014 and 4,507,807 in 2025. Source given: NHS Business Services Authority, Prescription Cost Analysis.
- NHS Business Services Authority, Prescription Cost Analysis, England 2025/26, published 4 June 2026. Summary tables for calendar year 2025, table “Chemical_Substances”. Finasteride in the hormones chapter (BNF 0604020C0, the 5 mg tablet and a 5 mg liquid): 4,507,794 items. Finasteride in the scalp and hair section (BNF 1309000W0, the 1 mg tablet): 13 items. The two add up to the minister’s figure.
- NHS Business Services Authority, Prescription Cost Analysis: background information and methodology, June 2026. “Prescriptions issued and dispensed in prisons, hospitals and private prescriptions are also excluded.” An item is a “single unit of medication listed separately on a prescription form”. “The NHSBSA do not capture the clinical indication of a prescription.”
- General Pharmaceutical Council, finasteride update for pharmacy teams, published 7 October 2024, last updated 13 August 2026. Finasteride “can’t be prescribed for androgenic alopecia in men under NHS primary care services”; registered pharmacies can supply it “under a Patient Group Direction or via a private prescribing service”.
- The Human Medicines Regulations 2012, regulation 253 (pharmacy records): a record of every sale or supply of a prescription-only medicine other than on an NHS prescription, kept for two years.
- UK Parliament, written question HL14256, Lord Alton of Liverpool, answered by Baroness Merron for the Department of Health and Social Care on 17 February 2026, on Yellow Card reports that use the term post 5-alpha-reductase inhibitor syndrome. The quoted sentence closes her answer.
- Propecia 1 mg film-coated tablets: patient information leaflet, last revised May 2026, electronic medicines compendium (emc). Section 2: stop taking it and contact a doctor if depression or suicidal thoughts develop. Section 4, “Frequency unknown”: “persistent difficulty having an erection after discontinuation of treatment”, with the same line for sex drive and for ejaculation.
- MHRA, Yellow Card: please help to reverse the decline in reporting of suspected adverse drug reactions, Drug Safety Update, May 2019. “It is estimated that only 10% of serious reactions and between 2 and 4% of non-serious reactions are reported.”
- Good Morning Britain, ITV, Pharmacists warn against buying prescription drugs online, 11 February 2026. Robb Dixon on ordering online from 0:44; six months of tablets and what followed from 1:49; “one in a million” at 5:00. His page on our site: Good Morning Britain: Robb Dixon on PFS.
- MHRA, MHRA Yellow Card scheme, film, 12 November 2024.
This information does not replace medical advice. Talk to your doctor before you make any decision about your treatment.
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