Decline in hospital admissions for drug-related mental and behavioural disorders

Hospital admissions for drug-related mental and behavioural disorders in England dropped by 5% in a year, new figures published by NHS Digital show.

The number of admissions with a primary diagnosis of drug-related mental and behavioural disorders has fallen from 7,376 in 2018-19 to 7,027 in 2019-20. This has decreased 18% from the previous highest recorded admissions in 2015-16 (8,621 admissions).

These admissions are still 21% higher than 10 years ago – in 2009-10 they totalled 5,809. Data on admissions with a primary and secondary diagnosis are also available in this report.

Statistics on Drugs Misuse, England 2020 is an annual compendium report which includes newly published information on hospital admissions for drug-related mental health and behavioural disorders as well as for poisoning by illicit drugs. Most of the data is for England only, but some is for England and Wales combined.

The report shows that 73% of hospital admissions for drug-related mental and behavioural disorders were for males.

Kingston upon Hull had the highest admission rate with 49 admissions per 100,000 population for drug-related mental and behavioural disorders during 2019-20. There were 13 local authorities which recorded rates of less than 5 admissions per 100,000 population.

There were 16,994 admissions for poisoning by drug misuse in 2019-20. This is 9% higher than the earliest comparable data, from 2012-13 (15,580), but shows a 6% decrease from 2018-19 (18,053).

Nationally, a similar proportion of men and women were admitted to hospital for poisoning by drug misuse in 2019-20.

Middlesbrough had the highest admission rate for poisoning by drug misuse with 106 per 100,000 population. Seven of the nine lowest rates (all below 10 per 100,000) were in London boroughs.