Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the effect of the covid-19 outbreak on the number of deaths related to drug and alcohol misuse; and if he will publish the statistics that he holds on that issue.

Public Health England is monitoring information on excess mortality to help understand the impact of COVID-19 during the pandemic period, including looking at the underlying causes of death.

Between 20 March and 27 November 2020, there have been an estimated 522 excess deaths attributed to cirrhosis and other liver disease. There was a total of 6,046 registered deaths from cirrhosis and other liver disease in the same period. However, not all these deaths will be linked to alcohol misuse, and there will be additional alcohol-related deaths which are not related to liver disease.

No estimate has been made of the number of deaths from causes such as drug or alcohol poisoning. This is because many of these deaths will be the subject of coroners’ inquests and not yet registered.