Alcohol death toll reaches highest ever recorded across North East

UKAT’s analysis shows that the death toll has also risen by 45% since records began in 2013 Credit: Ian West/PA Wire/PA Images

New figures released by the Office for National Statistics have revealed that alcohol-specific deaths recorded in 2020 - the year of the Coronavirus crisis - are the highest ever recorded in history for people living across the North East. 

The data - analysed by alcohol-addiction treatment experts UKAT - shows that the alcohol death toll in the North East in 2020 stands at 521; a 20% annual rise when 437 alcohol-specific deaths were recorded. 

UKAT’s analysis shows that the death toll has also risen by 45% since records began in 2013, when just 361 people living across the North East lost their lives to alcohol.

An alcohol-specific death is categorised by certain causes of death, such as alcoholic liver disease, accidental poisoning by and exposure to alcohol, alcohol-induced acute pancreatitis and mental and behavioural disorders due to the use of alcohol, alcoholic cardiomyopathy and the degeneration of the nervous system due to alcohol, to name a few. 

Over half (324) of those who lost their lives to alcohol in 2020 were male, according to UKAT’s analysis of the figures. 

At no other time since records began in 2013 has the rate per 100,000 people living across the North East who lost their lives to alcohol been as high as it was between April and June of 2020 (Q2) when it stood at 22.8.

The Department of Health and Social Care in England said it was giving £3.2bn to local authorities across the country to spend on services including drug and alcohol treatment.