Written Question · S5W-24419 · Session 5
whether it records the cause of a drug death in the same way as the rest of the UK and, if not, what the differences are.
The question
To ask the Scottish Government whether it records the cause of a drug death in the same way as the rest of the UK and, if not, what the differences are.
The answer
The National Records of Scotland (NRS) report Drug Related Deaths in Scotland in 2018 was published on 16 th July 2019. It states there were a total of 1,187 drug related deaths in 2018.
The NRS report records deaths as drug-related on the basis of its implementation of the ‘baseline’ definition for the UK Drugs Strategy. This is essentially the same as the definition of "drug misuse deaths" that is used by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) for its statistics for England and Wales, and by the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA) for its figures.
There are a number of definitions of drug related deaths, details of some are given in Annexes A and B of the report.
The report also provides statistics based on the ONS ‘wide’ definition of 'drug poisoning' deaths, and the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA) ‘general mortality register’ definition. In both cases, NRS applies the same definitions as ONS and NISRA use to produce the corresponding figures for their areas. These are detailed in Annex G and Table X of the report.
In addition there are some technical differences between Scotland and other parts of the UK in some aspects of the collection of information about drug-related deaths, which may affect slightly the comparability of their statistics, these are outlined in Paragraph G10 of the report.
The full report can be accessed via the following link:
https://www.nrscotland.gov.uk/statistics-and-data/statistics/statistics-by-theme/vital-events/deaths/drug-related-deaths-in-scotland/2018 .
The NRS report records deaths as drug-related on the basis of its implementation of the ‘baseline’ definition for the UK Drugs Strategy. This is essentially the same as the definition of "drug misuse deaths" that is used by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) for its statistics for England and Wales, and by the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA) for its figures.
There are a number of definitions of drug related deaths, details of some are given in Annexes A and B of the report.
The report also provides statistics based on the ONS ‘wide’ definition of 'drug poisoning' deaths, and the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA) ‘general mortality register’ definition. In both cases, NRS applies the same definitions as ONS and NISRA use to produce the corresponding figures for their areas. These are detailed in Annex G and Table X of the report.
In addition there are some technical differences between Scotland and other parts of the UK in some aspects of the collection of information about drug-related deaths, which may affect slightly the comparability of their statistics, these are outlined in Paragraph G10 of the report.
The full report can be accessed via the following link:
https://www.nrscotland.gov.uk/statistics-and-data/statistics/statistics-by-theme/vital-events/deaths/drug-related-deaths-in-scotland/2018 .
In the Official Report
No contribution in the Official Report cites S5W-24419 by reference.