Hospitals see 14% rise in drink victims

Ed: Just a question - are these people victims of drink? Did the alcohol somehow drink them?

Hospital admissions for drink problems soared 14 per cent after Labour relaxed the licensing laws in November 2005.

There were 187,640 alcohol-related hospital admissions in England during 2005-2006, compared with 164,787 the previous year.

The number of deaths climbed from 4,037 in 2004 to 6,570 in 2005, according to figures from the Information Centre for Health and Social Care.

They also show a doubling of alcohol-related hospital admissions in the past decade, up from 89,000 in the mid-1990s.

The figures include adults needing to be admitted for hospital treatment for intoxication, mental and behavioural problems, but do not include physical injury and accidents linked to alcohol.

Most worryingly, the number of children needing hospital treatment has risen by a third in a decade as binge drinking by teenagers continues to climb. Read more