Academics forecast 35 deaths a day from alcohol related illness

Thirty-five people a day will die of alcohol related diseases in the next five years without a dramatic, government-initiated change in Britain's drinking culture, researchers have warned.

Academics claim that alcohol consumption will cause 63,000 deaths in England between now and 2022 - 32,500 due to cancer and the rest due to liver disease - costing the “already overstretched” NHS £17bn in treatment for alcohol-related illnesses.

Yet, that burden - which amounts to 2,300 hospital admissions a day - could be dramatically cut through new advertising rules, a reinstated alcohol duty escalator that was scrapped by former Chancellor George Osborne in 2014 and new minimum pricing for a unit of alcohol.

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So effective could minimum pricing be that, set at 50p per unit, within five years there would be 1,150 fewer alcohol-related deaths and 74,500 fewer alcohol-related hospital admissions. It would also save the NHS £325.7m and cut alcohol-related crime costs by £710.9m.

The figures come in a new report from Sheffield University’s Alcohol Research Group, published by the Foundation for Liver Research and endorsed by the independent Lancet Commission on Liver Disease.

Liver disease presents “one of the most pressing public health concerns of our time” and is one of the most common causes of premature death in the UK, researchers said.

Mortality rates have increased by 400 per cent since 1970 and almost five-fold among under-65s.

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In its new report, the Foundation for Liver Research makes the financial case for public health action to tackle the main causes of liver disease.

Prof Roger Williams, director of the Foundation for Liver Research and chairman of the Lancet Commission on Liver Disease, said: “Liver disease is a public health crisis that has been steadily unfolding before our eyes for a number of years now and the Government will have to take robust public health action if its main causes (alcohol misuse, obesity and viral hepatitis) are to be controlled.

“Three years ago, the Lancet Commission on Liver Disease created a blueprint for improvement, supported by the clinical community, setting out a range of targeted measures to reduce the burden of ill health in these areas. Yet we are still missing prioritisation, funding and drive to implement the Commission’s recommendations.”

Lucy Rocca, the Sheffield-based founder of Soberistas, a social network for people who are concerned they may have a problem with drink, said the projected number of deaths due to alcohol-related illness was “staggering”, but for it to influence people’s attitude to heavy drinking, society must rethink its perception of what constitutes an alcoholic.

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“It is the wider group of people drinking three or four glasses of wine everyday to unwind after work, who wouldn’t consider that they have a problem, who are being affected by liver disease,” she said.

“It is a big bugbear that in our society we pigeon hole alcoholism. If we keep having the stereotype reinforced about the ‘park bench alcoholic’ we won’t question our own behaviour.”

She said the Government’s smoking ban and strict rules around the display of tobacco products show that regulatory intervention can make a difference.

“The way people perceive smoking has changed and it is because of government regulations, from there cultural attitudes have shifted and we need that for alcohol,” Ms Rocca said.