Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many people were admitted to hospitals with (a) drug and (b) opioid overdoses in each of the last ten years for which figures are available.

Hospital admissions data for the number of inpatients treated for a drug or opioid overdose is not available, as a person may have more than one admission within the period and data collected by NHS Digital is unable to specify drug overdoses within the diagnosis classification. Data is instead collected on finished admission episodes (FAEs) with a primary diagnosis of poisoning and toxic effect; figures for the financial years between 2007-08 and 2016-17 are provided in the attached tables.

A FAE is the first period of inpatient care under one consultant within one healthcare provider, which are counted against the year or month in which the admission episode finishes.

Further information about hospital admissions in England for poisoning by illicit drugs can be found in the following Lifestyles publication (Tables 1 and 5):

http://digital.nhs.uk/catalogue/PUB30210