Public Health Scotland has issued “minor updates” to a minimum unit pricing (MUP) summary document after the Scottish Conservatives submitted a complaint to the UK statistics watchdog.
Scottish ministers were accused of “cherry-picking” statistics to portray the positive impacts the flagship policy has had on alcohol deaths and hospital admissions following a report published in June.
Dr Sandesh Gulhane, health spokesman for the Scottish Tories, submitted a complaint to the UK Statistics Authority after the Public Health Scotland (PHS) report found alcohol deaths reduced by more than a 10th and hospital admissions directly linked to alcohol consumption fell by 4.1%.
The MUP policy introduced in May 2018 imposed a 50p minimum charge per unit of alcohol in a drink in a bid to curb alcohol harms.
Watchdog chairman Sir Robert Chote stated in his review that the findings in the PHS report were “communicated clearly and impartially”, but it found the wording may have suggested to readers that “most or all” of the studies referred to in the paper provided evidence on alcohol-related harms, despite it being just eight.
It said the “at a glance” document published by PHS did not include information about the level of uncertainty associated with the hospital and death reductions.
It said: “The figures are estimates based on statistical modelling and the reduction in hospital admissions was not found to be statistically significant”, adding the caveats were not conveyed in the press release or summarised document.
Following Sir Robert’s review, PHS has updated its summarised document to make clear the reductions in alcohol sales, deaths and hospitalisations were “estimates”.
But the health body stressed the changes only constituted “minor updates” to the June summary, adding: “PHS acknowledges the comments from the UK Statistics Authority about communicating uncertainty consistently. There have been no changes made to the final report, its findings or the interpretation of the findings.”
Dr Gulhane said the Scottish Government is “playing politics” with the country’s alcohol crisis, as he accused ministers of “shamefully spinning unconclusive data and pressuring PHS to alter its report to support their study”.
He said: “My concern from the outset was that the SNP were misrepresenting the evidence by cherry-picking one report out of 40 to back their stance.
“That concern has been vindicated by the UK Statistics Authority, whose analysis has forced the Scottish Government to amend its own press release.
PHS has emphasised there is no change to the findings or the interpretation of the findings— Scottish Government spokeswoman
“It’s far too serious a matter to play politics with. This crisis demands a clear-headed, data-led response from the SNP Government – rather than ministers shamefully spinning unconclusive data and pressuring PHS to alter its report to support their policy.
“The reality is MUP is not the panacea that the SNP would have us believe. At best the jury is still out on its effectiveness, given alcohol-related deaths continue to rise in Scotland several years after it was introduced.
“Humza Yousaf and his ministers need to apologise for misleading the public over MUP and instead adopt a wide-ranging approach to the crisis which includes a greater focus on treatment and rehabilitation provision.”
It comes as figures released by the National Records of Scotland (NRS) showed 1,276 peopled died due to alcohol in 2022 – the highest levels since 2008.
A Scottish Government spokeswoman said: “Public Health Scotland’s evaluation, published in June, estimated that minimum unit pricing has saved hundreds of lives, averted hundreds of alcohol-attributable hospital admissions, and is having a positive effect in our most deprived areas.
“This news release was updated to make it clear that the reductions in alcohol sales, deaths and hospital admissions are estimates. This was done following engagement with the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR).
“Both the Scottish Government and PHS engaged with OSR and small revisions have been made to the Scottish Government news release and the PHS ‘findings at a glance’ document.
“The wording around the number of studies involved was also revised in the SG news release to make PHS’s conclusions clearer and PHS has emphasised there is no change to the findings or the interpretation of the findings.”
