In England, the number of hospital admissions caused by alcohol has risen by two-thirds in the last five years, according to a September 2010 report.

Statistics compiled for Local Alcohol Profiles for England, which document people admitted to the hospital due to alcohol harm for every local authority area, show that there were 945,469 alcohol-related admissions in the year ending March 2009, a rise of 9.5 percent on 2007/08.

That means almost two people were admitted to the hospital for alcohol-related harm every minute.

Over five years the number of hospital admissions has grown by 65 percent and given the rate of growth, it is likely that the annual number will top the one million mark for the first time in 2009/10.

Professor Mark Bellis, Director of the North West Public Health Observatory comments: “The English death toll from alcohol now exceeds fifteen and a half thousand people every year. It is time to recognize 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.”