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Digital

National Statistics
Publication, Part of

Statistics on Alcohol - England, 2013

Official statistics, National statistics
Publication Date:
Geographic Coverage:
England
Geographical Granularity:
Clinical Commissioning Groups, Ambulance Trusts, Clinical Commissioning Regions
Date Range:
Snapshot on 30 May 2013

Summary

Errata note: Since publication at 9.30am on 30th May 2013, the year reference at the end of bullet 2 on page 7 has been amended from 2011/12 to 2010/11. The figures remain unchanged. We apologise for any inconvenience caused.

This statistical report acts as a reference point for health issues relating to alcohol use and misuse, providing information obtained from a number of sources in a user-friendly format. It covers topics such as drinking habits and behaviours among adults (aged 16 and over) and school children (aged 11 to 15), drinking-related ill health and mortality, affordability of alcohol, alcohol related admissions to hospital and alcohol-related costs. The report contains previously published information and also includes additional new analyses.

The new analyses are mainly obtained from the Health and Social Care Information Centre's (HSCIC) Hospital Episodes Statistics (HES) system, and prescribing data. The report also includes up to date information on the latest alcohol related government policies and ambitions and contains links to further sources of useful information.

How alcohol-related admissions are calculated:

Estimates of the number of alcohol-related admissions to hospital are calculated using a method developed by the North West Public Health Observatory (NWPHO) which takes information on patients' characteristics and diagnoses from the Hospital Episode Statistics (HES), together with estimates for the proportion of cases of a particular disease or injury that are caused by alcohol consumption (known as alcohol-attributable fractions (AAFs)).

Within this publication, two main measures are presented:

  • a broad measure, which is derived by summing the alcohol attributable fraction associated with each admission based on the diagnosis most strongly associated with alcohol out of all diagnoses (both primary and secondary); and
  • a narrow measure, which is constructed in a similar way but counts only the fraction associated with the diagnosis in the primary position.

Highlights

In England:

 

· 61 per cent of men and 72 per cent of women in 2011 had either drunk no alcohol in the last week, or had drunk within the recommended levels on the day they drank the most alcohol. This was most common among men and women aged 65 or over.

 

· 64 per cent of men drank no more than 21 units weekly, and 63 per cent of women drank no more than 14 units weekly in 2011.

 

· 12 per cent of school pupils had drunk alcohol in the last week in 2011. This continues a decline from 26 per cent in 2001, and is at a similar level to 2010, when 13 per cent of pupils reported drinking in the last week.

 

· In 2011/12, there were 200,900 admissions where the primary diagnosis was attributable to the consumption of alcohol (the narrow measure). This is a 1 per cent increase since 2010/11 when there were 198,900 admissions of this type and a 41 per cent increase since 2002/03 when there were around 142,000 such admissions.

 

· In 2011/12, there were an estimated 1,220,300 admissions related to alcohol consumption where an alcohol-related disease, injury or condition was the primary reason for hospital admission or a secondary diagnosis (broad measure). This is an increase of 4 per cent on the 2010/11 figure (1,168,300) and more than twice as many as in 2002/03 (510,700). Comparisons over time in the broad measure are complicated by changes in recording practices over the period. In order to estimate the trend once changes in recording practices are accounted for, a method to adjust the national figures has been devised which is presented in Appendix E. Adjusted figures show a 51 per cent increase from an estimated 807,700 in 2002/03 and a 1 per cent increase from 1,205,500 in 2010/11.

 

· In 2012, there were 178,247 prescription items prescribed for the treatment of alcohol dependence in primary care settings or NHS hospitals and dispensed in the community. This is an increase of 6 per cent on the 2011 figure (167,764) and an increase of 73 per cent on the 2003 figure (102,741).

 

· The Net Ingredient Cost (NIC) of these prescriptions was £2.93 million in 2012. This is an increase of 18 per cent on the 2011 figure (£2.49 million) and an increase of 70 per cent on the 2003 figure (£1.72 million).

 

Resources

Last edited: 11 April 2018 5:20 pm