The rise in NHS admissions due to alcohol

Binge drinking has become a hot topic in recent years, with the Government looking at new ways to crack down on it amid a large amount of violence and disorder caused by alcohol. 24 hour drinking has been blamed as has the rise in availability and the dramatic fall in prices  of alcohol.

In 2002 there were 510,200 hospital admissions wholly attributable to alcohol, and this seems like a lot already, however in the last published statistics there were 863,300 admissions in 2008. This is after a significant increase year on year in those 6 years. That is over 350,000 MORE hospital admissions due to alcohol. This stat includes people who were drunk, alcoholics, been affected by the toxic effects of alcohol or had an alcohol related disease such as liver disease.

The most troubling statistic is the rise in alcohol dependency. 29,500 alcoholics were admitted in 2002, and this went up to 45,100 in 2008. This is a very large amount of people needing alcohol detox, but there is no guarantee that they will have allowed themselves to be helped in this way as a lot of alcoholics are in denial, and all a hospital visit amounts to is an inconvenience.

Incredibly, 4,700 of the wholly attributable admissions were under 16, which shows that it is becoming much easier for youngsters to get hold of alcohol now.

Admissions that were “partly attributable” to alcohol were up from 379,100 in 2002 to 640,700 in 2008. This included all accidents, violence and non-liver illnesses. Alcohol fuelled violence has become a massive problem and has left some city centres no-go areas for a lot of people.

The age group with the most admissions are amazingly 75 and over, which could maybe be due to their lack of tolerance to alcohol in their old age.

It will be interesting to see how much more of an increase there is when the new results are published in the next couple of months, it would be expected based on the trends of the previous 8 years that 2009 will again break the record for NHS admissions attributed to alcohol.