Drug and alcohol harms 'significant and growing', says Stormont report

A Stormont report into addiction services has said harms caused by drug and alcohol use are "significant and likely to get worse".

The report by the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) also highlights consistent increases in drug-related deaths over the past decade.

The number of alcohol-specific deaths in Northern Ireland in 2020 was the highest on record.

There were 351 such deaths last year - an average of almost one a day.

The figure was first reported by the Office of National Statistics (ONS) in December, but further details on the local situation were published by the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (Nisra) on Thursday.

Nisra describes alcohol-specific deaths as "deaths resulting from health conditions that are a direct consequence of alcohol misuse".

The agency has been publishing alcohol-related death statistics since 2001 and said there had been a "general upward trend" in such deaths over that period.

The total of 351 Nisra-recorded deaths in 2020 was more than a third higher than the 260 recorded in 2010.

Of those 351 people who died last year, two-thirds were male and one third female.

Most of them were in the 45-54 or 55-64 age groups.

Meanwhile, the just-published PAC report into addiction services also details a doubling of drug-related deaths over the past decade.

There were 191 drug-related deaths in 2019, compared to 92 in 2010.

The PAC report does not contain figures for 2020, but Stormont assembly members said that "the impact of the pandemic" would make it "more challenging" to reverse the increases in alcohol-specific and drug-related deaths.

The report said that the level of harm caused by substance use was "significant and growing, and the pressures on services, and the wider public sector are becoming unsustainable".

The assembly members (MLAs) on the committee said they were "alarmed" by the prevalence of prescription drug use in Northern Ireland.

"High prescribing rates of some prescription drugs are a significant cause for concern, particularly as these drugs are now involved in the majority of drug-related deaths in Northern Ireland," the report said.

They drew particular attention to a drug called Pregablin - also known by the brand name Lyrica - which has been linked to a number of deaths.

The committee called for the Department of Health (DoH) to have a "clear objective of reducing drug and alcohol related deaths".

But they also said that there was a need for joined-up action across government and a need to ensure there were more services for those suffering from addiction, including more residential rehabilitation.

The report also said there were long waiting lists for alternative therapies like counselling.

The department produced a new strategy on substance use in September 2021.

But the PAC said that implementation of that would need more than £6m a year of additional funding, which has not yet been secured.

"Without this funding the department will have hard choices to make about which elements of the strategy cannot be fully implemented," the report said.

They urged the Northern Ireland Executive to ensure that the budget for the strategy was provided.