You asked
I understand deaths caused by drug poisoning statistics as a disaggregated time line from 2000 for the whole of the UK are not available. Why is Scottish data not compiled/produced/included along with that for England & Wales?
We said
Thank you for your enquiry.
For historical reasons, ONS has statutory responsibility for the production of statistics on deaths in England and Wales, under the Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007. Similar statistics in Scotland and Northern Ireland are the responsibility of National Records of Scotland (NRS) and the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA) respectively.
Under the constitutional arrangements for the devolved administrations in Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales, health is a devolved matter. This means that we publish health-related statistics relating to those three countries, and to the UK as a whole, only by agreement with the relevant authorities.
While our main responsibility, when it comes to publishing mortality statistics, is England and Wales, we often request data from the NRS and NISRA to produce UK mortality statistics such as Suicide Registrations in the UK and Alcohol-Specific deaths in the UK. It is not always possible to produce UK-wide mortality statistics when definitions used (by ONS, NRS and NISRA) to compile statistics differ, as is the case with deaths caused by drug poisoning.
Further information on drug related deaths, including definitions, for each country of the UK can be found via the below links: https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/bulletins/deathsrelatedtodrugpoisoninginenglandandwales/2017registrations
https://www.nisra.gov.uk/sites/nisra.gov.uk/files/publications/Drugs%20Information%20Paper.pdf