Health Direct asks if you had a good weekend- as hospital admissions due to alcohol have risen by 825 a day in five years to almost a million. There were 945,469 admissions to hospital for alcohol-related harm in England in 2008/09.A survey by the North West Public Health Observatory also revealed that more than a quarter of drinkers exceed healthy limits every week, making us a nation of irresponsible boozers.

The findings came as experts recommended a UK-wide price limit on drink should be brought in to try to curb alcohol misuse.

The Alcohol Commission, which was set up by the Labour Party in Scotland, has recommended a ban on selling drink at below the “floor price” of the cost of production, plus the cost of duty and VAT.

In the study, northerners were found to be the hardest drinkers but the most alcohol-related crimes were committed in London.

The academics, based at Liverpool John Moores University’s Centre for Public Health, published their Local Alcohol Profiles for England (Lape 2010) report.

Professor Mark Bellis, the observatory’s director, said: “The price we pay for turning a blind eye to the real extent of alcohol abuse across England is reflected in the new Local Alcohol Profiles for England and it is a price that is paid especially by the poorest communities.

“The English death toll from alcohol now exceeds fifteen-and-a-half thousand people every year.

“It is time to recognise that we are not a population of responsible drinkers with just a handful of irresponsible individuals ruining it for others.

“Over one in four drinkers exceed weekly limits according to national surveys and alcohol sales figures suggest the number is much higher.

“At weekends, by the early morning hours our city centres do not have just a few drunk individuals in them – actually most people are drunk yet continue to be able to buy alcohol despite such sales being illegal.

“We need to see the real cost of alcohol reflected in the price it is sold at and the warnings about the dangers that alcohol represents not relegated to a tiny corner in alcohol adverts, but written large enough for people to recognise the seriousness of the risks.”

Key indicators such as healthcare, criminal justice, benefits claimants, drinking patterns and deaths were considered in mapping the nation’s booze breakdown.

Researchers also found:
:: Two thirds (65%) of all local authorities suffering the highest levels of overall harm are in England’s North West and North East.

:: The 10 local authority areas with the highest levels of combined alcohol-related harm, in descending order, are: Manchester, Salford, Liverpool, Rochdale, Tameside, Islington, Middlesbrough, Halton, Oldham and Blackpool.

:: By comparison the East and South East contained two thirds (65%) of all the local authorities with the lowest overall harm. The 10 local authorities with the lowest levels of alcohol-related harm, in ascending order, are: Broadland, East Dorset, South Northamptonshire, Babergh, Three Rivers, South Norfolk, Hart, Sevenoaks, Wokingham and North Kesteven.

:: Across England, there were 415,059 recorded crimes attributable to alcohol in 2009/10; equivalent to 8.1 crimes per 1,000 population. The highest rates of alcohol-attributable crime occur in the London region where there were 12.2 crimes per 1,000 residents, although this has decreased by 2.1% from the previous year. The lowest rate is in the North East region at 6.2 crimes per 1,000 which also showed the largest decrease (13.5%) from the previous year.

Dr Ruth Hussey, regional director of public health for the North West, said: “We are once again reminded of the terrible burden that the abuse of alcohol causes to residents of the North West through its affects of ill health and crime.

“The North West alone saw over 100,000 individuals admitted into hospital for alcohol related reasons in 2008/09.

“Parts of the North West have already pioneered new ways to educate the public about alcohol and improve access to care for those requiring support. Alcohol costs people their jobs, their health and their lives.”

Health minister Lord Howe said: “Levels of alcohol-related hospital admissions, crime, ill-health and deaths are unacceptable and we have already outlined our commitment to tackling the problem by taking action to stop the sale of alcohol below cost, to review alcohol taxation and price, and introducing a tougher licensing regime.

“Supply and price are not the only factors fuelling misuse though, attitudes are crucial. We need to understand better the psychology behind why different groups of people drink too much. Legislation or initiatives will not work unless we have a better understanding of what drives people’s decisions.

“We will work across Government, society, communities and families to challenge negative social norms that cause social problems and promote the positives.”

From: http://www.independent.co.uk/alcohol-related-hospital-admissions-soar

Britain’s top GP has launched a scathing attack on widespread reckless public behaviour towards food, alcohol and cigarettes, which he claims is causing growing levels of disease and early death.
In a dramatic intervention in the public health debate, Professor Steve Field criticises parents, mothers-to-be, the very overweight, smokers and drinkers for damaging their own health, or their children’s, through irresponsible actions.

Writing in the Observer, Field, chairman of the Royal College of General Practitioners, backs the controversial call by Andrew Lansley, the health secretary, for Britons to take more responsibility for protecting their health.

“The truth is that too many of us neglect our health, and this is leading to increasing levels of illness and early death,” Field writes. Soaring levels of diabetes, much of it caused by obesity, and the medical consequences of heavy drinking, which are affecting ever-younger people, illustrate this widespread failure, he adds.

Discussion of the harmful medical consequences of ill-advised personal behaviour is curtailed because of its sensitivity, Field argues.

“Too many people do not face up to the hard facts, as they perceive them to be an attack aimed, in particular, at the poorer members of society. But it is impossible to argue on medical or ethical grounds that such behaviour is acceptable.”

While arguing for health prevention to become an individual duty and start at home, Field makes it clear that he does not want people to be left to make lifestyle changes on their own or to see personal responsibility as a total solution. Those who seek to alter their behaviour need continuing NHS and government help, he adds.

“So please don’t take offence if we [GPs] tell you to lose weight or stop smoking or drinking. You need to face facts and take responsibility. Support is out there and it could save your life – and save the NHS a fortune.”

Anne Milton, the public health minister, said greater personal responsibility was vital. Many senior doctors also agreed, but stressed that government action was needed to help create a climate in which people could swap healthy for unhealthy behaviour, such as by monitoring big food companies.

Lansley has alarmed senior doctors by saying the coalition will use much less regulation than Labour did to tackle problems such as obesity and smoking.

GPs seek to help people live healthy lives “but every day we are confronted by the harm caused by smoking, excessive alcohol consumption and the ‘tsunami’ of obesity”, adds Field, the leader of the country’s 40,000 GPs.

Irresponsible parents are damaging their children’s health by smoking around them, feeding them unhealthy food and failing to act as good role models, he says. Mothers and fathers who smoke in cars carrying their offspring – who Field says “are committing a form of child abuse” – and at home in front of their children kill more young people than do accidental injuries.

Parents who give their children unhealthy food, or serve them large portions are storing up huge problems for them, says Field. “Unless parents exert more control over their children’s diets, they are risking a lifetime of health problems, and even premature death – death before their parents, which is almost too sad to contemplate,” he adds.

Parents’ failure to safeguard their children from sunburn and using sunbeds can also lead to them developing skin cancer, he argues. Mothers who smoke while pregnant risk causing their child’s death through cot death syndrome, asthma, lung infections or house fires. Would-be mothers and women who are already expecting need to control their weight because maternal obesity can harm the mother or her baby.

Instead of becoming obese and then asking the NHS to provide liposuction or gastric bands, “it would be better if people didn’t become fat in the first place”, by eating better and exercising more.

Agreeing with Field, Milton said: “We need a new public health movement, owned by everyone, for everyone’s benefit. A movement that transforms the way in which the public’s health is improved, but also revolutionises the way we think about it. As Field points out, personal responsibility is a key part of this.”

However, Milton added: “The government recognises that it cannot force people into behaving in a certain way. But we can help people make informed decisions and ensure that they are enabled and supported to make healthy choices.”

Professor Terence Stephenson, president of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, agreed some parents let down their children. “Of course paediatricians agree that people should take responsibility for their own lives. But young children cannot do that. What they eat and the environment they live in are determined by their parents. There is a role for society to protect young children from promotion of unhealthy foods and passive smoking. Would all parents strap young children into a car seat if it was left to choice rather than law?”

He urged a twin-track approach of exhorting parents to care for children well but society also intervening to help by, for example, limiting advertising of unhealthy foods.

Dr John Middleton, vice-president of the UK Faculty of Public Health, said: “A significant amount of ill-health is due to people’s lack of personal responsibility. The NHS would have fewer burdens on it if people were more physically active, cut their alcohol consumption and ate a lower-fat, lower-sugar diet. The government and the NHS cannot do everything. But someone trying to give up smoking will find it easier if they get counselling and nicotine replacement therapy on the NHS, for instance.”

The government had a key role to play in promoting health, as shown by its crackdown on smoking and its fluoridisation of water supplies, said Professor Dinesh Bhugra, president of the Royal College of Psychiatrists. People who insisted on smoking despite all the warnings about it should retain their freedom to do so, he added.

But Tam Fry, National Obesity Forum spokesman, suggested Field was being naïve. “If Professor Field wants a world where everyone assumes personal responsibility, he is living a dream. He appears to have forgotten the 35-40% of our population who live in the same obesogenic environment as he does but simply can’t cope with it or have long since given up the unequal struggle. They are the people who are quite unequipped to resist the 24/24 battering of junk food promotion and are easy prey for the marketing men.”

However, “certainly the 40% of women entering pregnancy either overweight or obese do so simply because they have never had role model lessons in parenting from either their own mothers or health professionals”, Fry added.

From: http://www.guardian.co.uk/public-health-attitudes-leading-gp