The latest drug related death figures for England and Wales (2024) show a continuing increase in the number of people dying from a treatable condition.
More people are dying of drug related issues than ever before and as in previous years the fatality rate doesn’t hit our communities equally.
In England there is a marked North-South divide; the North East of England has had the highest rate of drug related deaths for the last 12 years. The South West saw the biggest reduction.
Men in their 40s who use opiates continue to die at a higher rate than other age groups.
As the largest charitable provider of residential treatment in the UK, we see clearly the barriers people face trying to access this specialist form of treatment. We work with the inequity in our communities every day.
We see the North-South divide in access to specialist residential treatment. Of the 12 local authority areas in the North East of England more than half didn’t fund any residential treatment for people using opiates, just 263 people in treatment for opiate use were funded, just 0.4% of the opiate users in community treatment. The local authorities in the North East of England are not alone in excluding people from residential treatment, but as a region they are amongst the worst in Europe.
Residential treatment is the oldest form of drug treatment with a strong evidence base for people with multiple needs and opiate users. Despite that we see the number of opiate users being referred to residential treatment continue to decline.
Women continue to be fearful of approaching services for help and when they do they face extraordinary obstacles to getting the right treatment to meet their needs.
People are continuing to die of a treatable condition because they are not getting access to all the treatment approaches we know work.
We have been advocating for over a decade for using the full range of evidence-based interventions including all forms of harm reduction and for reviving residential treatment. In regions where drug related deaths in England are highest, we would like to see an urgency like the National Mission in Scotland that provides targeted funding for a full range of interventions.
We wait to see how the Government in Westminster responds to a public health crisis that seems to play out in silence. Will they provide the focus and leadership we see from devolved nations? Or will they continue to consign people in our most deprived communities to being denied access to healthcare that can save their lives?
