Alcohol-related health issues are placing an increasing burden on NHS services, according to recent data from NHS England. Published under ‘Statistics on Public Health’ the data shows the number of admissions where the primary reason for hospital admission or a secondary diagnosis was linked to alcohol.
In 2019/20, alcohol was responsible for over 980,000 hospital admissions, making up 5.7% of all hospitalisations. This marks a 4% increase from the previous year.
The report found that 24% of patients (233,800) were aged between 65-74, whilst those aged between 16-24 represented less than 3% of total admissions. This seems to mirror a trend which has seen a decline in alcohol consumption amongst young people in recent years.
Of those admitted, the top three most common diagnoses were:
- Cardiovascular disease
- Mental and behavioural disorders due to use of alcohol, and
- Cancer
Men accounted for 73% of alcohol-related admissions, highlighting a significant gender disparity. However, the number of women admitted has been on the rise in recent years.
The data also highlights the regional differences in alcohol-related admissions. Recorded by admission rate by upper tier Local Authority (per 100,000 population), it has been found that Southampton had the highest admission rate in 2019 at 4,070 per 100,000. In contrast, Wokingham had the lowest rate at 1,070 per 100,000.
Understanding these trends helps us identify regional variations and potential strains on local services. This knowledge is crucial for allocating resources and providing targeted support where it’s needed most.
You can learn more about the situation in your local authority by viewing the map below, or clicking the link here
About this map
This map has been created using our Local Authority District – 2019 map template, to reflect the boundaries when the data was collected. These boundaries were updated in 2021 and then again in 2023.
The data was published by NHS England in their ‘Statistics on Alcohol, England 2021‘ release [27/01/2022].
We have included six heatmaps in this visualisation, three showing the ‘Number of Admissions per 100,000’ (All, Male and Female), and three showing the total ‘Number of Hospital Admissions due to Alcohol’ (All, Male, Female).
We have used seven colours on each heatmap, with an equal count map key. This means that there are an equal number of local authority districts assigned to each colour, helping to highlight similarities between different geographical locations.
On the local authority pages we have included both a ‘National Average’ and a ‘National Ranking’ for each data point. Both of these are designed to set the localised data within the national context, but can be turned off in the Polimapper settings. On these pages, we have also included a table to include data from 2016-2019.