Alcoholic Drinks and Drugs: Women
(asked on 14th November 2023) - View Source
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many women (a) have been assessed to need and (b) are receiving (i) drug and (ii) alcohol recovery services.
Information is not collected centrally on the number of women assessed by drug and alcohol treatment and recovery services. Drug and alcohol treatment in England is commissioned by local authorities, who are responsible for assessing local need in their area, and commissioning a range of services and interventions to meet that need. The Office for Health Improvement and Disparities (OHID) provides oversight of local delivery at a national level and continue to monitor implementation against the aims of the Government’s 10-year drug strategy.
OHID has published prevalence estimates for opiate and crack use which can be found at the following link:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/opiate-and-crack-cocaine-use-prevalence-estimates
This includes an estimate that there were 71,749 women who were dependent on these drugs in 2019/20, a rate of 4.01 per thousand women. Alcohol prevalence figures are not broken down by sex but can be found at the following link:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/alcohol-dependence-prevalence-in-england
The latest publicly available adult substance misuse treatment statistics for England can be found at the following link:
The publication indicates there were 94,135 women in contact with drug and alcohol services between 1 April 2021 and 31 March 2022. Out of these women, 38,736 were in treatment for opiate use, 9,761 were in treatment for non-opiate use only, 10,299 were in treatment for non-opiate and alcohol use and 35,339 were in treatment for alcohol use only.