Hospital admissions related to illegal drug use (FOI)

Request

How many people were admitted to hospital for illegal drug related issues for the years 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019?

For each year can I get the figures for how many of the admissions were classed as a drug overdose?

For each year can I get a breakdown of what illegal drug the admission was related to?

Response

Abuse of psychoactive substances is categorised by class of substance, not legality or illegality. Poisoning is also generally categorised by broad classes of substance, though there are a few codes that are specific and detail substances that are illegal.

There are many legal, prescription drugs that will be classified to the same codes as illegal drugs - except where explicitly stated, we cannot distinguish between these cases without clinician review of the notes.

Additionally, it should be noted that any prescription drug obtained without prescription would be considered ‘illicit use’, but this is similarly indistinguishable from coding alone and would require clinician review of all poisonings. This would be beyond the limit of Freedom of Information time constraints.

Please be aware that we will always code the conditions listed below when documented in the patients care record, as they are all deemed to be essential co-morbidities that affect a patient’s health state. This is in accordance with the NHS guidance on the use of the ICD-10 produced by the World Health Organisation.

Secondary coding of conditions determined to be essential co-morbidities could be either because they are a reason for admission or purely because they are essential co-morbidities. Only scrutiny of the medical record would distinguish each potential scenario.

The following ICD10 codes have been used to construct this response:

Primary position only:

Mental and behavioural disorders due to use of opioids (includes prescribed, legal and illicit)

Mental and behavioural disorders due to use of cannaboids (includes prescribed, legal and illicit)

Mental and behavioural disorders due to use of sedatives or hypnotics (includes prescribed, legal and illicit)

Mental and behavioural disorders due to use of cocaine

Mental and behavioural disorders due to use of other stimulants, including caffeine (includes prescribed, legal and illicit)

Mental and behavioural disorders due to use of hallucinogens (includes prescribed, legal and illicit)

Mental and behavioural disorders due to use of volatile solvents (includes legal and illicit)

Mental and behavioural disorders due to multiple drug use and use of other psychoactive substances (includes prescribed, legal and illicit)

Any position in the diagnostic coding sequence:

Mental and behavioural disorders due to use of opioids (includes prescribed, legal and illicit)

Mental and behavioural disorders due to use of cannaboids (includes prescribed, legal and illicit)

Mental and behavioural disorders due to use of sedatives or hypnotics (includes prescribed, legal and illicit)

Mental and behavioural disorders due to use of cocaine

Mental and behavioural disorders due to use of other stimulants, including caffeine (includes prescribed, legal and illicit)

Mental and behavioural disorders due to use of hallucinogens (includes prescribed, legal and illicit)

Mental and behavioural disorders due to use of volatile solvents (includes legal and illicit)

Mental and behavioural disorders due to multiple drug use and use of other psychoactive substances (includes prescribed, legal and illicit)

The following codes would show poisoning or overdose of illicit substances as a precipitant factor in admission to hospital:

The following codes would show poisoning or overdose by substances in classifications which contain both legal and illicit substances, as a precipitant factor in admission to hospital. As such, it should be stipulated that any data returned for these codes does not exclusively apply to illegal substance use:

NB: please be aware that alcohol taken in any quantity alongside other drugs or pharmaceuticals is considered to be a poisoning / toxic effect, so will be coded as such, irrespective of the quantity of either drugs or alcohol involved.

Using the above codes as described, the table below shows the number of admissions coded:

* This number is likely to increase as episodes are coded following patient discharge. Due to the complexity of the process, there is a delay in the coding of episodes and therefore it is possible that there are un-coded alcohol related episodes in 2019.

The table below shows the number of admissions from the table above that were coded with a code indicating poisoning or overdose.

Disclosure control has been applied to the data in order to protect the identity of individuals, in accordance with Article 25 (Personal Information) of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011. Numbers less than five have been shown as <5.

Article applied

Article 25 Personal information

(1) Information is absolutely exempt information if it constitutes personal data of which the applicant is the data subject as defined in the Data Protection (Jersey) Law 2018.

(2) Information is absolutely exempt information if –

(a) it constitutes personal data of which the applicant is not the data subject as defined in the Data Protection (Jersey) Law 2018; and

(b) its supply to a member of the public would contravene any of the data protection principles, as defined in that Law.

(3) In determining for the purposes of this Article whether the lawfulness principle in Article 8(1)(a) of the Data Protection (Jersey) Law 2018 would be contravened by the disclosure of information, paragraph 5(1) of Schedule 2 to that Law (legitimate interests) is to be read as if sub-paragraph (b) (which disapplies the provision where the controller is a public authority) were omitted.