Drinking alcohol was the main reason for 358,000 admissions to hospital in 2018/19 according to new figures published by NHS Digital today. The number of admissions is 6% higher than 2017/18 and 19% higher than a decade ago, according to the Statistics on Alcohol, England 2020.
Alcohol-related admissions accounted for 2% of overall hospital admissions, which is the same rate as 2017/18. Men accounted for 62% of alcohol admissions, while 40% of patients were aged between 45 and 64.
These figures are based on the narrow measure where an alcohol-related disease, injury or condition was the primary reason for a hospital admission or there was an alcohol-related external cause.
A broader measure that looks at a range of other conditions that could be caused by alcohol shows 1.3 million admissions in 2018/19, this is an 8% increase on 2017/18 and represents 7% of all hospital admissions.
This report also presents a range of information on alcohol use and misuse by adults and children drawn together from a variety of sources.
Other figures included in the report show:
- There were 5,698 deaths specifically attributed to alcohol in 2018, this is 2% fewer than in 2017
- 77% of alcohol related deaths happened in people aged 40 to 69
- 38% of men and 19% of women aged 55 to 64 usually drank over 14 units of alcohol in a week
- The average household spent £8.70 per week on alcohol in 2017/18
- People aged 65 to 74 had the highest average weekly alcohol spend of £10.60 a week.
This report contains newly published data from the Public Health England Local Alcohol Profiles for England, which uses data from NHS Digital’s Hospital Episode Statistics.
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