News

AFS Comment on ONS Alcohol Specific Death Stats

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) has today (Monday 11^th May) published their latest figures for alcohol specific deaths in the UK.

Overall, in 2024, there were 9,809 deaths from alcohol specific causes in the UK, a rate of 14.8 per 100,000 people. This represents a small decrease on the previous year (10,473) and also a reduction in the rate of deaths, previously at 15.9 per 100,000.

In Scotland alone, there were 1,185 alcohol-specific deaths, a modest reduction of 92 on the previous year. However, alcohol deaths in Scotland remain high, at more than double the level of 30 years ago.

Scotland continues to have the highest rate of alcohol deaths in the UK (20.9 per 100,000 people). However, these figures show that the gap is narrowing as the increase in deaths since the pandemic has been steeper in England than Scotland; likely due to the protective effect of minimum unit pricing in Scotland.

Northern Ireland (21.4 per 100,000) and the North-East of England (21.1 per 100,000) now have the highest alcohol death rates in the UK. Attempts to introduce minimum unit pricing in Northern Ireland recently ran out of Parliamentary time, whilst England continues to have no plans to introduce MUP.

Carolyn Lochhead, CEO of Alcohol Focus Scotland said:

“It’s good news that today’s figures show a year-on-year reduction in deaths caused by alcohol in Scotland. But alcohol is still responsible for more deaths here than in England and Wales. Each of these numbers represent real people – someone’s parent, sibling, or friend – who lost their lives too early. While Scotland was once a world leader in tackling the harm caused by alcohol, in recent years we have fallen woefully behind.

“The new Scottish Government must take decisive action and follow through on previous commitments to address the relentless marketing of alcohol, as well expand lifesaving liver screening and invest in alcohol treatment. Unless we get serious about tackling alcohol harm, we will continue to see increasing deaths, ill-health and costs to the economy”.