Drug hospitalisation rate up 14% in a year, figures show

The drug hospitalisation rate in Scotland rose by 14% in the past year, figures show.

Public Health Scotland released statistics on Tuesday showing there were 212 stays in hospital related to drugs per 100,000 of the population in 2023-24, up from 186 the previous year, but still lower than the 242 stays recorded in 2021-22.

The rate of overdoses also increased in the past year, rising from 22 per 100,000 to 27.

According to the figures, almost half of hospital stays were of those living in 20% of Scotland’s most deprived areas, while those living in the most deprived 40% of areas accounted for three quarters of stays.

Years have passed since the SNP declared a public health emergency on drug deaths, and yet the number of people hospitalised for overdoses is rising

Scotland has been wrestling with high levels of drug deaths in recent years, with 1,172 people reported to have died from drugs in 2023 – up 12% from the previous year.

Scottish Labour deputy leader Dame Jackie Baillie said the figures show the country’s “drug crisis continues to wreak havoc with people’s lives”.

“Years have passed since the SNP declared a public health emergency on drug deaths, and yet the number of people hospitalised for overdoses is rising.

“It’s clear more must be done to get those struggling with addiction both the urgent help and long-term treatment they need.

“We need a joined-up approach across government to not only save lives but support recovery.”

Scottish Tory drug and alcohol spokeswoman Annie Wells said the statistics should be a “source of shame” for the Government.

“These deeply alarming stats highlight the SNP’s abject failure to get a grip on the drugs emergency which escalated while ministers took their eye off the ball,” she said.

“The surge in drug-related hospital stays and overdoses suggest that this national crisis is getting worse, not better and, as ever with the SNP, it’s those from the poorest communities who suffer most.

“Lives are being lost and communities torn apart while nationalist ministers sit on their hands and pin all their hopes on a drugs consumption room being the solution.”

The Scottish Lib Dems pointed to cocaine hospitalisations being the highest on record, with a rate of 39.45 per 100,000 of population, up from 28 the previous year.

“This is yet another distressing reminder of the scale of Scotland’s drugs crisis,” the party’s leader, Alex Cole-Hamilton, said.

“Alongside rising numbers of hospital stays, the cocaine trade is fuelling a wave of violence in Edinburgh and across the central belt.

“One way to tackle that is to boost drugs services and offer help to those who misuse drugs.

“For years, Scottish Liberal Democrats have led the way in calling for transformational action. Sadly, in the time that it took other parties to catch up, thousands of lives have been lost.”

A spokesman for the Scottish Government said: “As part of our national mission on drugs, we’re taking a wide range of evidence-based measures including opening the UK’s first safer drug consumption facility pilot, working towards drug-checking facilities and widening access to treatment, residential rehab and life-saving naloxone.

“We’re working hard to respond to the growing threat from cocaine and polydrug use, and from highly dangerous synthetic opioids like nitazenes which are being found in a range of substances in an increasingly toxic and unpredictable drug supply.

“Such synthetics increase the risk of overdose, hospitalisation and death. Because of their strength we would urge people to carry extra, life-saving, naloxone kits.”