Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what estimate his Department has made of the (a) number of deaths related to opioid usage and (b) rates of opioid addiction.

The Office for National Statistics reported that there were 2,208 drug poisonings deaths in England and Wales registered in 2018 that had an opiate mentioned on the death certificate. The data can be viewed at the following link:

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/bulletins/deathsrelatedtodrugpoisoninginenglandandwales/2018registrations

Information about the prevalence of opiate (and crack cocaine) use in England is produced by Liverpool John Moores University. The latest estimated number of people who use illicit opiates (mainly heroin) aged 15-64 in England in 2016-17 was 261,294. The report can be viewed at the following link:

https://phi.ljmu.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Estimates-of-the-Prevalence-of-Opiate-Use-and-or-Crack-Cocaine-Use-2016-17-Sweep-13-report.pdf