{"id":13788,"date":"2019-07-04T09:41:31","date_gmt":"2019-07-04T08:41:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.fiveminutesspare.com\/news\/?p=13788"},"modified":"2019-07-04T16:46:05","modified_gmt":"2019-07-04T15:46:05","slug":"a-report-reveals-the-cost-to-the-nhs-for-alcohol-abuse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fiveminutesspare.com\/news\/a-report-reveals-the-cost-to-the-nhs-for-alcohol-abuse\/","title":{"rendered":"A report reveals the huge cost to the NHS for alcohol abuse"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">One in ten people in hospital beds in the UK are alcohol dependent and one in five are actually doing themselves harm by their drinking addictions. This has all been discovered by new research done on the NHS and the drinking culture.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-13789\" src=\"http:\/\/www.fiveminutesspare.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2019\/07\/bnnj.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"609\" height=\"396\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.fiveminutesspare.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2019\/07\/bnnj.jpg 1000w, https:\/\/www.fiveminutesspare.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2019\/07\/bnnj-300x195.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.fiveminutesspare.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2019\/07\/bnnj-768x499.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 609px) 100vw, 609px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Hospitals are having to cope with a large number of people whose drinking habits have left them in A&amp;E or a mental health unit. The NHS treatments for alcohol is estimated to cost \u00a33.5 billion a year. <a class=\"story-body__link-external\" style=\"color: #000000;\" href=\"https:\/\/onlinelibrary.wiley.com\/doi\/10.1111\/add.14642\">A study<\/a>\u00a0was published in the Addiction journal. It looked at 124 past studies and more than 1.5 million patients to estimate how many had any of 26 conditions related to heavy alcohol use.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">These included:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul class=\"story-body__unordered-list\">\n<li class=\"story-body__list-item\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">liver disorders<\/span><\/li>\n<li class=\"story-body__list-item\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">gastrointestinal disorders<\/span><\/li>\n<li class=\"story-body__list-item\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">alcohol poisoning<\/span><\/li>\n<li class=\"story-body__list-item\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">mental disorders because of alcohol use<\/span><\/li>\n<li class=\"story-body__list-item\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">foetal alcohol syndrome<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">The patients were in general wards, intensive care units, A&amp;E departments or mental health inpatient units.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><strong>Dr Richard Piper, the chief executive of Alcohol Change UK, the campaign group behind Dry January said:<\/strong> \u201cThese numbers are shocking: the number of beds used, the cost to the NHS, the sheer number of people suffering as a result of alcohol,\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">\u201cAs dedicated alcohol treatment services have faced years of swingeing cuts, hospitals are being left to pick up the pieces \u2013 but most simply do not have the expertise or capacity to do so, resulting in alcohol problems going untreated and those suffering returning to hospital time and time again.\u201d\u00a0<strong>he <span style=\"color: #000000;\">added.\u00a0<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">The government have funded alcohol care teams in 25% of hospitals that are worst affected by patients with alcohol problems. Alcohol Change UK said alcohol care teams, working across hospital departments and with the community services, save lives and NHS money. \u201cPublic\u00a0Health\u00a0England estimates that a seven-day service of this kind in a hospital can save 2,000 bed days per year, creating a saving of \u00a33.85 for every \u00a31 invested,\u201d said Piper.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">The World Cancer Research Fund pointed out that drinking alcohol increases the risk of six types of cancer including breast and bowel cancer.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><strong>The NHS England chief executive, Simon Stevens, said:<\/strong> \u201cAlcohol dependence can devastate families with the NHS often left to pick up the pieces, yet the right support can save lives. The NHS long-term plan will expand specialist alcohol care teams in hospitals across the country to tackle problem drinking and prevent 50,000 admissions over the next five years.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>One in ten people in hospital beds in the UK are alcohol dependent and one in five are actually doing themselves harm by their drinking addictions. This has all been discovered by new research done on the NHS and the drinking culture.\u00a0 Hospitals are having to cope with a large number of people whose drinking&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":13789,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[251,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13788","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health","category-uk-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fiveminutesspare.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13788","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fiveminutesspare.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fiveminutesspare.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fiveminutesspare.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fiveminutesspare.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13788"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.fiveminutesspare.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13788\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13794,"href":"https:\/\/www.fiveminutesspare.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13788\/revisions\/13794"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fiveminutesspare.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13789"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fiveminutesspare.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13788"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fiveminutesspare.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13788"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fiveminutesspare.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13788"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}