Lothian has Scotland's worst rate for excessive drinkers

Published on Tuesday 6 October 2009 10:01

MORE people in the Lothians drink too much than anywhere else in Scotland, it has been revealed.

New figures show four in 10 men and 32 per cent of women exceed the recommended weekly alcohol limit – the highest in the country.

Local health chiefs believe pockets of deprivation in the Lothians are at the root of the problem, but this does not explain why the average is higher than areas such as Strathclyde Safe limits which has the highest proportion of drink-related deaths.

The recommended alcohol intake equates to around 11 pints of lager a week for men, and seven for women.

Nationally, around 30 per cent of adults exceed the limit, but that figure rises to 40 per cent in men in the Lothians.

The figures emerged at NHS Lothian's annual review, chaired by Health Secretary Nicola Sturgeon, yesterday.

The health board's director of public health, Alison McCallum, said GPs were working hard to identify people who could be targeted for "brief alcohol interventions" – where people are quizzed about their intake if alcohol is a factor in health problems.

This could see 100,000 people affected within two years, while accident and emergency staff will also begin targeting people who could be candidates for the intervention, as well as midwives who could speak to pregnant women with alcohol problems.

She said: "We have about 500 midwives ready to go this year.

"The next phase will be working (with] the accident and emergency staff and we are confident we will get there in the end."

She also revealed nearly 6,500 such interventions were carried out by July this year in an effort to turn the tide.

Alcohol emergency admissions rose in Lothians hospitals from 545 in every 100,000 in 2003 to 723 this year, and in some parts of Edinburgh people are twice as likely to die from alcohol abuse than the national average.

The cost to the health service is estimated at around 6.3 million a year locally.

Tom Wood, former chairman for the council's Action Team on Drugs and Alcohol, said: "It is easy to blame younger people and deprivation, but it goes deeper.

"Younger people may be more visible, but alcohol is entrenched in our culture and becomes a way of life – in everything we celebrate and everything we see.

"But it runs across age groups and class, it can't be all down to deprivation."

Glenn Liddall, manager of Simpson House which has a project helping children affected by alcohol, said: "We shouldn't be surprised that as a city Edinburgh is among the highest, but if you were to ask most people I think they would probably guess somewhere in the west to be worse.

"We are seeing a rise in the number of children coming through our doors who have been affected by alcohol."

He added: "We need to look not only how much is being drunk but how; is it all at once on a Saturday night or a smaller amount every day."