NEW data released by the Office for National Statistics has revealed that alcohol-specific deaths recorded in 2020 – the year of the COVID-19 crisis – are the highest ever recorded for people living across the North West.
The data – analysed by alcohol-addiction treatment experts UKAT – shows that the alcohol death toll in the North West in 2020 stands at 1,210; a staggering 20% annual rise from when 1,013 alcohol-specific deaths were recorded.
Experts from the UK Addiction Treatment Group (UKAT) say the figures “must slap council leaders across the face and force them to take real action because if they don’t, more people will die.”
UKAT’s analysis shows that the death toll has also risen by 22% since records began in 2013, when just 985 people living across the North West lost their lives to alcohol.
An alcohol-specific death is categorised by certain causes of death, such as alcoholic liver disease, accidental poisoning by and exposure to alcohol, alcohol-induced acute pancreatitis and mental and behavioural disorders due to the use of alcohol, alcoholic cardiomyopathy and the degeneration of the nervous system due to alcohol, to name a few.
Over half (794) of those who lost their lives to alcohol in 2020 were male, according to UKAT’s analysis of the figures.
At no other time since records began in 2013 has the rate per 100,000 people living across the North West who lost their lives to alcohol been as high as it was between October and December of 2020 (Q4) when it stood at a staggering 18.2.
Year of death registration & Number of alcohol-specific deaths in the North West
2020 1,210
2019 1,013
2018 993
2017 1,052
2016 1,026
2015 994
2014 1,054
2013 985
*Office for National Statistics data, analysed and presented by the UK Addiction Treatment Group
Nuno Albuquerque, Head of Treatment for the UK Addiction Treatment Group (UKAT) who analysed the figures said; “We must remember that these aren’t just numbers; these are people’s mothers, fathers, neighbours and friends living across the North West who have lost their lives to alcohol, people who during a global pandemic had to endure the heartache of losing a loved one to a substance so widely accepted in society.
“2020 was an incredibly difficult year, and so it is saddening but unsurprising to see that more people than ever turned to alcohol as a coping strategy, which in these instances, caused them to lose their lives.
“Last year we treated more people than we ever have for alcohol addiction; but these people are lucky because they got the help they needed.”
The Department of Health and Social Care in England said it was giving £3.2bn to local authorities across the country to spend on services including drug and alcohol treatment, but the experts at UKAT worry this money will just ‘get lost in the system’;
“Unfortunately we know that some councils across the North West spend less and less each year on both the prevention and treatment of alcohol addiction; but today’s figures must act as a slap across the face. It is now time to wake up and take real action, and show those in your local community that you care.
“Council leaders have the power to help in their hands; they just have to choose where to spend the money, and not let money that should be allocated on vital, effective drug and alcohol rehabilitation programmes get lost in the system because if it does, then more people will die.”
24/7 confidential help and support with alcohol is available at www.ukat.co.uk/alcohol/v90/
1 Comment
I’ll be a public advisor to a research study at Liverpool Uni on isolation and alcoholism for the elderly and how we can break the cycle and get people out of their house and.bsck into the community.