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Hospital booze admissions soar

The Number of people admitted to Southampton General Hospital because of alcohol has shot up nearly 75 per cent in the past four years, the Daily Echo can reveal.

Disturbing NHS figures show that 483 people were kept in hospital with alcohol-related illnesses in 2004 but by 2007 booze accounted for 847 admissions.

Southampton Primary Care Trust estimates that around 11,160 patients are currently turning up at the accident and emergency department with alcohol problems - 12 per cent of the total patients in the department.

Consultants have previously said that seven out of every ten people who go into casualty on Friday and Saturday nights were there because of drink.

It comes after the Daily Echo revealed that Southampton was the third worst place for alcoholrelated violence in the country - after Kingston-upon-Hull and London - and launched a campaign to curb the city's alcohol problem.

The NHS statistics also revealed that around two thirds of people in the South East drink on a weekly basis with nearly a fifth of people saying they drank at least five times a week.

It also revealed that a third of people drank at least four units once a week - the equivalent of four shots of spirit, three small glasses of wine or two pints of normal strength lager or bitter.

University of Southampton liver expert Nick Sheron warned that the rise in the amount people were drinking represented a significant health problem and was storing up problems for the future.

He said: "The increase in alcohol use is very steep and it is reasonable to assume that as 20- somethings are now drinking more than they were in previous years they will be drinking more in their 30s and 40s.

"Some of the effects are immediate such as getting intoxicated and having to deal with the consequences of that.

"I am certain that people are not aware of the damage alcohol is causing. This is gradually improving with more information getting out there but there is a long way to go."

The largest ever Government drinking campaign has just been launched to try and crackdown on the country's booze culture.

A Southampton Primary Care Trust spokesman said that around a quarter of emergency department patients drink at levels likely to be hazardous to their health and that almost half of those who are frequently treated by the department - six or more times a year - have alcohol-related problems.

This is Hampshire