GPs in East Lancashire have been advised not to prescribe a controversial anti-depressant to teenagers amid fears it prompts suicidal thoughts.

Doctors have been contacted after health bosses received advice from a Government agency which deals with the dangers of prescription drugs.

East Lancashire's primary health trusts are among the first in the country to issue the advice about Seroxat. GlaxoSmithKline, which makes the drug, said it is only licensed for adults and has helped millions of people around the world.

Areas such as East Lancashire, which have pockets of poverty and suffer wide-spread poor housing, are known to have higher prescription rates of drugs than anywhere else.

Government advisors from The Medicine and Health Care Products Agency have pointed to research which suggest Seroxat can double the risk of self-harm in young people.

In East Lancashire, an independent campaign is under way to get the drug, Britain's most popular anti-depressant, banned after local people who used it said it left adults feeling the same way.

Dr Steven Morton, from the Hyndburn and Ribble Valley Primary Care Trust, said: "On the basis of the guidance issued to us, we have written to every surgery expressly stating that Seroxat should not be given to juveniles.

"This is because of studies which suggest it increases the risk of self-harm."

Dr Morton, head of the East Lancashire Public Health Network, which promotes healthy living, added that an anti-depressant should only be used for a short period of time, and that GPs should work with patients to tackle the cause of their depression.

Seroxat is part of a family of drugs called selective serotinin re-uptake inhibitors, or SSRIs.

It has been available in Britain for the last 13 years and is thought to have been taken by 800,000 people last year.

It is only licensed for adults, but this does not prevent doctors from prescribing it 'off label' to around 8,000 children nationally, and also to teenagers suffering depression.

Seroxat is one of a number of SSRIs being reviewed by a special Government panel.

GlaxoSmithKline recently passed on results from nine studies involving children.

The Medicine and Health Care Products Agency has said that these results have shown Seroxat is not as good at treating depression in under-18s and that youngsters on it could be twice as likely to have suicidal thoughts or harm themselves.

A spokesman for the global drugs company said: "This decision is solely concerned with the treatment of children and teenagers under the age of 18. It is not related to use by adults."