Government fails to stop boozers consuming hospital time

3.00.00pm BST (GMT +0100) Wed 6th Apr 2005

In February, Bath's MP, Don Foster revealed that last year the Avon and Somerset Police force had to deal with over 2,500 violent offences related to alcohol consumption.

Now he uncovered figures that show in the last year alone the number of alcohol-related admissions to the Accident & Emergency department at Bath's Royal United Hospital has nearly doubled (rising from 563 in 2002/3 to 1,069 in 2003/4)

Commenting, Don said:

"These figures show that the Government has utterly failed to bring binge drinking and alcohol-related hospital admissions under control.

"It's particularly worrying that Bath's increase is much higher than in many other parts of the country.

"If Labour hadn't wasted seven years before introducing their Alcohol Harm Reduction Strategy, we might not have 1,069 such incidents clogging up the RUH.

"In such a climate of binge drinking and with police, councils and the industry still unprepared, whoever forms the next government must put Labour's planned longer licensing hours on hold.

"We also need measures to ensure we have better unit labelling on alcoholic drinks, to prevent unacceptable drinks promotions such as so-called "happy hours" and to give our council increased powers to work with the police to tackle binge drinking.