One person a week rushed to hospital with liver disease
AN average of one person a week was rushed to Macclesfield Hospital for alcoholrelated liver disease last year.
New figures from the NHS reveal that there were 58 emergency admissions in the area for liver disease brought on by excess drinking in 2016-17.
It was around the same - 56 - during 2015-16.
That works out at 32 emergency hospital stays for every 100,000 people living in east Cheshire - a higher rate than the national average.
The figures come as Cheshire East Council launches a campaign aimed at reducing the amount of alcohol under 30s drink.
‘Drink Less Enjoy More’ encourages young people to cut back on how much they drink at home before going out – so-called ‘preloading’ - as well as how much they consume when visiting bars, pubs and clubs.
Drunkenness can have immediate health consequences such as alcohol poisoning, but can also contribute to sexual violence, accidents and violent crimes.
Council licencing teams and Cheshire Police will be working with pubs and bars reminding them that serving people who are clearly drunk could see them stripped of their licence and fined up to £1,000.
Councillor Paul Brant, cabinet member for adult social care and health, said: “This is about reducing the strain on public services such as the police, ambulance staff and hospitals at a time when they are already under massive pressure.
“We know that many people travel into the city from surrounding areas so it makes sense to spread the campaign more widely.”
The figures compare favourably with neighbouring Stockport where the number of emergency admissions for drinkrelated liver disease was much higher, rising from 117 in 2015-16 to 152 last year.
That means the area now has one of the highest rates of emergency hospital stays in the country - 62 for every 100,000 people living there.
Across England heavy drinkers were urgently admitted to hospital as a result of liver disease on 12,508 occasions, or 28 times for every 100,000 people in the country.
That’s up slightly from the 12,402 emergency admissions seen last year, and a 20 per cent increase from 2010-11, when there were 10,361 drink-related hospital stays for liver disease.