Scotland registered 1,152 alcohol-specific deaths in 2025, a fall of 33 deaths, or 3%, from the year before. The total is the lowest recorded since 2019 and marks a second consecutive annual decrease. It remains a serious level of harm, and the new figures sit alongside the start of a hospital alcohol-care pilot in Fife intended to strengthen support before and after a hospital stay.
The Fife pilot has begun at Whytemans Brae Hospital in Kirkcaldy. It will build on the existing Alcohol Care and Liaison Team, with the aim of identifying alcohol use disorder and liver disease earlier and helping people move from acute care into appropriate support in their communities. The model is designed to bring hospital staff, primary care, specialist services and third-sector organisations into closer contact around a person’s care.
A fall that needs careful reading
Alcohol-specific deaths are deaths from causes wholly attributable to alcohol. The 1,152 figure is a count of deaths registered during 2025, rather than a measure of every hospital admission or every condition in which alcohol may have played a part.
After adjustment for the age profile of the population, Scotland’s alcohol-specific death rate was 20.2 per 100,000 people in 2025. That was close to the 20.9 recorded for 2024; the year-on-year change in the rate is not statistically significant. The longer comparison is more encouraging: the rate has fallen from 22.6 per 100,000 in 2022, and the decline between 2022 and 2025 is statistically significant.
The headline reduction was driven by 43 fewer male deaths. There were 758 male alcohol-specific deaths in 2025, while the number for females rose by 10 to 394. The age-standardised rate for males remained more than twice the female rate, at 27.8 deaths per 100,000 males compared with 13.3 per 100,000 females. Those differences describe the current pattern; they do not explain why an individual death occurred.
The statistics also show that alcohol-specific deaths have an older age profile than in earlier decades. People aged 45 to 64 and 65 to 74 continued to have the highest rates, while the average age at death in this series has risen to 60. That remains well below the average age of 77 for deaths from all causes in Scotland during 2025.
A test of hospital-to-community care
The new team in Fife is intended to offer more than a hospital intervention. Its planned role includes intensive support beyond discharge, earlier detection of alcohol use disorder and liver disease, and more joined-up contact with community services. It also aims to improve engagement with treatment, reduce avoidable admissions and readmissions, and involve families more closely where appropriate.
The Scottish Government has allocated £164,000 for the pilot initially, with £328,000 planned for the following year. The funding supports a trial rather than a service already available in hospitals across the country. The pilot will be evaluated, with Fife Health and Social Care Partnership and Healthcare Improvement Scotland expected to share learning from it.
That evaluation matters. A reduction in readmissions or an improvement in treatment engagement is an aim, not an outcome already demonstrated by the new team. Equally, wider adoption elsewhere in Scotland has not been confirmed. Any future expansion will depend on what the pilot shows and on subsequent decisions about funding and delivery.
Inequality remains central
The national decline does not remove the unequal burden shown in the data. In 2025, the age-standardised rate in Scotland’s most deprived areas was 4.8 times the rate in the least deprived areas. For deaths from all causes, the comparable gap was around twofold. The difference underlines why a change in the national total cannot be treated as an equal improvement for every community.
Geography also matters, although local comparisons need care. Over the five years from 2021 to 2025, rates were higher than the Scottish average in Glasgow City, Inverclyde, North Lanarkshire, West Dunbartonshire, Dundee City and Renfrewshire. Those multi-year rates are used because they are more reliable for comparing areas, especially where annual numbers are smaller.
Fife recorded the largest numerical decrease among council areas between 2024 and 2025, with 21 fewer registered alcohol-specific deaths. That count does not account for population size and should not be read as proof that any one local service or policy caused the change. It does, however, place the new pilot in a community where the latest data and the proposed response can be followed closely.
The immediate development is therefore twofold: a modest national fall in registered alcohol-specific deaths and the launch of a locally focused care pilot. Both warrant sustained attention. The figures show progress against recent levels, but also a continuing public-health challenge shaped by sex, age, deprivation and place. The Fife team will now be judged by whether better coordination can help people receive timely, respectful support in hospital and after they return to their communities.
