Alcoholism and Drugs: Death
(asked on 2nd December 2024) - View Source
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to reduce death rates from (a) alcohol, (b) drugs and (c) suicide in (a) the North and (b) coastal regions.
A vital part of delivering the Health Mission shift to prevention will be action to reduce the number of deaths due to alcohol and drug use, especially in deprived areas. In England, rates of drug poisoning and drug misuse deaths have a marked north-south divide, with the North East of England having consistently seen the highest rate of drug and alcohol deaths over the previous decade.
The Department is continuing to invest in improvements to local drug and alcohol treatment and recovery services to ensure that those in need can access high quality help and support. The Office for Health Improvement and Disparities has an action plan to reduce drug and alcohol-related deaths, which is being reviewed in light of the recent Office of National Statistics data, to ensure that it is grounded in the latest understanding of the drivers of drug and alcohol related deaths, and is responding to these. Additionally, the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities has published Commissioning quality standard: alcohol and drug services, which provides guidance for local authorities to support them in commissioning effective alcohol and drug treatment and recovery services in their areas. Further information on the guidance is available at the following link:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/commissioning-quality-standard-alcohol-and-drug-services
The Department continues to work with all local areas to address unmet need and drug and alcohol misuse deaths, and to drive improvements in the continuity of care. This includes the Unmet Need Toolkit which can be used by local areas to assess local need and the causes of mortality, in order to plan to meet it.
Earlier this year the Department published guidance for local authorities and their partnerships on how to review adult drug and alcohol-related deaths and near-fatal overdoses to prevent future deaths. This is available at the following link:
It also published guidance on incident planning and preparedness for the emerging threat of potent synthetic opioids.
As part of the NHS Long Term Plan, over £30 million of national funding has been invested between 2019 and 2025, on an ambitious programme to establish new, or optimise existing, Alcohol Care Teams (ACTs) in the 25% hospitals with the highest need, which is 47 out of 188 eligible sites in England. The ACTs identify people in hospital whose ill health is related to alcohol use, commence treatment for alcohol dependence, and refer to community alcohol treatment on discharge.
The Government has committed to tackling suicide as one the biggest killers in this country. The 8,500 new mental health workers we will recruit will be specially trained to support people at risk to reduce the lives lost to suicide. The Suicide Prevention Strategy for England, published in September 2023, identifies a number of targeted actions at a national level. We are exploring opportunities to go further.
79 organisations have been allocated funding up to March 2025 from the £10 million Suicide Prevention Grant Fund and are delivering a broad and diverse range of activity that will prevent suicides and save lives including in the North and in coastal areas. Organisations benefitting include Lancaster Men’s Hub, Stockton and District Advice and Information Service, and Cornwall Neighbourhoods for Change Ltd.