This is not the National Hangover Service, says health boss

NEW YEAR revellers who turn up at A&E just to sober up may instead be put away in “drunk tanks”.

Under NHS plans, inebriated patients would be put in special rooms under the supervision of a nurse, freeing up resources for real injuries and emergencies. The tanks, known as Alcohol Intoxication Management Services, are already used by some authorities to relieve pressure on the health service.

Simon Stevens, NHS England chief, said drunks were being “frankly selfish” by using the service at a time when emergency departments were under intense pressure. “NHS doesn’t stand for ‘National Hangover Service’,” he said. “I’ve seen first hand how paramedics and A&ES are called on to deal with drunk and often aggressive people.”

Drunk tanks are designed for revellers to sleep off the worst of their hangovers. Staff there are equipped with drips, pumps and defibrillators for those who are dangerously inebriated. Alcohol intoxication is responsible for between 12 and 15 per cent of routine A&E admittances in England, according to the NHS, but that jumps to 70 per cent over Christmas and the New Year.

The drunk tank is widely used in East Europe and the US, where it was made famous in the lyric to the Pogues’ Christmas song Fairytale of New York.