Drug-related Deaths in Scotland in 2016

Correction to Table 4 - 17 January 2018
We regret that there were errors of 1 in each of four of the 'males' figures in the lower part of Table 4, because they did not take account of a correction to the underlying data for 2014 which is described in paragraph 1.7 of the publication.  Two of the 'males' figures for 2014 were wrong: the 'all ages' total of 452 should have been 453 (as shown in the upper part of Table 4); and the '55 and over' figure of 27 should have been 28.  The corresponding 'males' 2012-2016 averages were also wrong: the 'all ages' average of 467 should have been 468 (as shown in the upper part of Table 4); and the '55 and over' average of 36 should have been 37.  The other tables were not affected by such an error. All the different versions of Table 4 (in the HTML and PDF versions of the publication, and in the Excel, CSV and PDF versions of the table) have now been corrected on this website. We apologise for any problems or inconvenience that may have been caused by our error.

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With effect from the publication of Drug-related Deaths in Scotland in 2009, the standard basis for the National Records of Scotland figures for individual drugs for 2008 and subsequent years was changed to 'drugs which were implicated in, or which potentially contributed to, the cause of death'. Further information about this change is given in (e.g.) paragraph 1.3 and Section 2 of Drug-related Deaths in Scotland in 2009.

However, there is also some interest in statistics which cover all the drugs reported by a pathologist, including any 'which were present, but which were not considered to have had any direct contribution to this death'. Therefore, the extra tables that are available via the links below provide figures for individual drugs, for NHS Boards and councils, on this 'all drugs found present in the body' basis. These statistics are on the same basis as, and so may be compared with, the figures for 2008 which were published in Tables HB3 and C3 of
Drug-related Deaths in Scotland in 2008 - except that NHS Board boundary changes mean that, in some cases, they are not directly comparable to what was published in previous years. It must also be remembered that these figures are not on the standard basis.

Statistical Service in Scotland

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