Evening Chronicle
NORTH EAST, England — Paramedics are summoned to an alcohol-related incident in the North East every 17 minutes, new figures reveal.
It is estimated that in the last year alone there were 31,000 emergency calls for booze fuelled incidents in the region.
And answering those calls cost the North East Ambulance Service a total of £9m.
Experts at Newcastle University worked in partnership with the North East Ambulance Service and Balance, the region’s alcohol office, to reveal the true cost of alcohol abuse and they said that one in 10 of all call-outs were alcohol related.
To get the figures, the researchers combined digitally recorded incident logs from the ambulance service between April 2009 and March 2010, with more detailed scrutiny of records.
Last night, public health specialists described the figures as the “tip of the iceberg” and said lives were being put at risk as emergency resources were stretched to deal with alcohol-related issues.
Eileen Kaner, professor of public health at Newcastle University, was an author of the research, published in the Journal, Alcohol and Alcoholism.
She said: “This study just looked at the cost directly for the ambulance service. It didn’t take into account all the other NHS and policing costs of dealing with drunken behaviour.
“People need to understand how much alcohol-related incidents are costing the public sector.”
It is estimated that for the entire country, the cost to ambulance services would be approximately £150m a year.
Richard Ilderton, a paramedic with the North East Ambulance Service has had years of experience in dealing with drunken people on his shifts.
He said: “I have been assaulted, both verbally and physically, as have most of my colleagues. It’s not just the call-out for the people affected by booze but drunken bystanders can cause big problems as well.”
Alcohol campaigners in the region have called for a minimum price to be imposed on alcohol.
Colin Shevills, director of Balance, said: “Cleaning up after those who drink too much has created an unbelievable burden on all our frontline services.
“We’re in this mess because alcohol is sold at pocket money prices, available 24/7 and marketed to the tune of £800m a year. We need to use these same levers to turn back the tide of alcohol misuse, which includes the introduction of a minimum unit price.”
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