UK 'developing a dangerous alcohol addiction'

Drinkers living in the North are far more likely to binge on alcohol, be admitted to hospital and die younger than their southern counterparts, research showed today.

Across all of England, 18.2% of adults binge drink at least double the daily recommended level in one or more sessions a week, based on the week in which they were questioned.

But the biggest binge drinkers lived in the North East and North West (23% of adults) compared to those in the South East, South West and East of England (less than 16%).

Experts warned that Britain had gone from a nation "enjoying a harmless tipple" to one developing "a dangerous alcohol addiction".

In Newcastle upon Tyne, Liverpool and Durham, more than 27% of adults said they binge drink, compared to areas such as East Dorset, where less than 10% of adults do so.

The research was published by the Centre for Public Health at Liverpool John Moores University and the North West Public Health Observatory, and is based on figures from 2004 to 2006.

When it came to hospital admissions for alcohol-related conditions, those in the North East and North West proved the biggest burden - with 1,100 men and 610 women admitted per 100,000 population in 2004/05.

This compared to less than 700 men and 400 women per 100,000 in the South East.

Areas such as Liverpool, Manchester and Middlesborough had around 70% more admissions than England as a whole, with more than 1,400 men admitted per 100,000 people.

Across England, rates stand at 826 men and 462 women per 100,000.

The lowest burden for hospital admissions was in areas like Wokingham and West Berkshire, where fewer than 430 men and 240 women per 100,000 were admitted in 2004/05.

Across the whole of England, the average loss of life due to drinking was 10 months for men and five for women.

But in Blackpool, men could expect to shave 23 months off their life and women 13 months - around 140% above the English average.

Manchester, Barrow-in-Furness and Salford, in Lancashire, all suffered badly, with men losing around 16.5 months of their lives.

In comparison, men lost just two to four months due to alcohol if they lived in the Isles of Scilly or East Dorset.

In 2005/06, 367,000 violent offences due to alcohol were recorded - equivalent to 7.3 violent crimes per 1,000 people across all of England.

In London the figure was 9.8 and in Yorkshire and the Humber it stood at 8.2.

Outside of the City of London, which has an unusually high crime rate, the City of Westminster, Islington in north London and Leicester all saw 14 to 15 violent crimes per 1,000 people.

In comparison, there were 5.6 crimes per 1,000 people in the East of England.

In East Dorset and South Cambridgeshire the figure dropped to less than two violent offences per 1,000 population.

Professor Mark Bellis, director of the Centre for Public Health, said: "These profiles graphically illustrate the growing costs of cheap alcohol, a night-time economy almost exclusively packed with bars and clubs and a failure to deliver a credible drinking message to both youths and adults.

"More importantly though, they are a means to identify those areas worst affected and over time examine what can work to stem a rising tide of alcohol related ill health and anti-social behaviour.

"Health agencies, police and schools all have major roles to play in reducing the damage caused by alcohol but so do the alcohol industry, employers and the general public.

"We hope that making these statistics widely available will highlight that we are no longer a nation enjoying a harmless tipple but increasingly one developing a dangerous alcohol addiction."

Professor John Ashton, North West Regional Director of Public Health said: "We have made significant progress in reducing the toll of death and disease from heart disease and cancer in recent years, meanwhile alcohol is racing ahead as one of the biggest threats to public health not least in some of the most disadvantaged parts of the country.

"Fears of being accused of being part of the nanny state have intimidated governments from tackling head on the manufacturers of cheap alcohol in the same way that they would if this was any other kind of drug.

"We can stand by and reap the toll of mental and physical wreckage or decide as a society that enough is enough and so solicit a willingness to roll back the tide of alcohol that is washing over us."

Recent figures from the Information Centre for Health and Social Care showed that drink-related hospital admissions in England have reached record levels.

Numbers admitted to hospital with a diagnosis of alcoholic liver disease have more than doubled over the past 10 years, with 35,400 admissions in 2004/05, up from 14,400 in 1995/96.

A spokeswoman for the Department of Health said: "We are working hard to raise awareness about alcohol misuse and ensure that treatment is available to those who need it.

"The first-ever national needs assessment concerning alcohol problems has just been completed and we are getting more people into treatment.

"We already spend an estimated £217 million a year on alcohol treatment and treat an estimated 63,000 people in specialist alcohol treatment services - with even more getting support from their GPs.

"An additional £15 million has been committed for 2007/08 to improve interventions for alcohol misuse.

"In addition, we are working with the drinks industry, police and health professionals to increase awareness of the dangers of excessive drinking and make sensible drinking messages easier to understand.

"Later this year we will be launching a joint campaign with the Home Office to promote sensible drinking."

Press Association