Drug Related Hospital Statistics (DRHS)

Drug-Related Hospital Statistics (DRHS) is an annual report on hospital admissions associated with drug use across the NHS in Scotland.

The report is based on the following nationally available data sources, collated using information routinely drawn from hospital administrative systems:

• Hospital data from PHS General Acute Inpatient / Day cases Records (SMR01) - acute inpatient and day cases
• Mental Health Inpatient and Day Case Records (SMR04) - psychiatric inpatient and day cases

To allow comparisons between geographical areas that may be different in size and age structure of the population, DRHS indicators are often presented as European Age-sex Standardised Rates (EASR).

For further information on the methodology used, please refer to our Methods publication.

View the most recent statistics publication 

Data explorer and trend data

The annual report is also accompanied by an interactive dashboard which contains trend data and a data explorer.

The Data explorer provides a detailed breakdown of Drug-Related Hospital Statistics data in Scotland over time.

You can visualise this data using the following pages:

• Location comparison - compare data by location, over time
• Drug type comparison - compare data by drug type, over time
• Age/sex - show data by age group and sex
• Deprivation - show data by deprivation quintile
• Monthly trend - show data by month
• Data - view and customise data tables

A less detailed overview of drug-related hospital stays in Scotland over time is available in the Trend data page

View the data explorer.

Open Data

Open data from this publication is available from the Scottish Health and Social Care Open Data platform (external website).

Further Information

The Scottish Public Health Observatory (ScotPHO) (external website) provides information on various aspects of illicit drug use in Scotland.