FOREWORD
The drug death statistics published each year in the General Register of Scotland ( GROS) report are fundamental to the work of the National Forum. This year the GROS report was more detailed than ever before. The report confirmed a disappointing but not unexpected trend. Drug-related deaths increased 8% from 421 in 2006 to 455 in 2007. Eighty-six per cent of deaths occurred in males and the majority were in the 25-44 age group with an increasing median age, now 34 years (28 years in 1996).
In May 2008 the Scottish Government published its strategy The Road to Recovery for tackling Scotland's drug problems. Alongside it the Government published its response to the Forum's 2007 Annual Report and, in doing so, accepted the need for more systematic data collection, the need for dedicated funding, and for up-to-date, focused national information campaigns. The Forum recognises there is a need for more information about the circumstances surrounding individual drug deaths than will appear in the statistics which a GROS report might provide. In the past year the Forum has therefore developed a dataset which will reveal more detailed background information. It was devised after a long consultation with members of the Forum and their organisations, Alcohol and Drug Action Teams ( ADATs), service users and Information Services Division ( ISD). The proposals were tested in three pilot studies and the national Drug-related Deaths Database was launched on 1 January 2009. It will look more closely at the circumstances around each individual death. The data is being collected at local level by ADAT co-ordinators and is being collated and analysed centrally by ISD.
Even with this detailed national data collection it will still be important for local critical incident groups to continue to review their own data as there may be important local variations. For example, one ADAT area (Borders), has a cluster of deaths which fall into a much younger age group than the national average.
It is hoped that the extra information will provide us with a greater understanding of the relative importance which we should attach to various premonitory features, such as, the length of drug taking history, previous overdose, alcohol abuse, the general state of mental and physical health, previous engagement with medical and social services and heavy snoring as a warning of imminent death. This information should help us develop a policy which will reduce the number of deaths.
JANE JAY
Chair, National Forum on Drug-related Deaths in Scotland