Substance misuse, July-September 2012

Statistics on Substance Misuse in Wales include data concerning people presenting to treatment services for substance misuse. The latest release updates the statistics previously released on 20 November 2012.

The key points from the latest release are:

• there were more than 7,500 referrals for treatment of alcohol or drug misuse notified to the database. During the quarter over 4,300 assessments were carried out by treatment services and over 3,500 treatments commenced
• 57 per cent (4,300) of referrals related to misuse of alcohol, 38 per cent (2,800) related to misuse of drugs and 5 per cent (400) of referrals had no main substance reported
• of those where a main substance was reported 60 per cent of referrals were for alcohol and 40 per cent for drugs misuse. Heroin accounted for 35 per cent of all referrals for which drugs were specified as the main substance, with cannabis (20 per cent) and cocaine (9 per cent) the next most common drugs
• males accounted for the majority of all referrals for both alcohol (64 per cent) and drugs (71 per cent)
• just under 86 per cent of referrals for any substance were treated within 20 working days of referral

We welcome feedback from our users. If you have any views on the content, format, relevance, clarity, accessibility or timing of this release please contact us.

Contact

Tel: 029 2082 3134
E-mail: stats.healthinfo@wales.gsi.gov.uk

Next update

May 2013 (provisional - to be confirmed on the 'Due out soon' page)