Booze releated 999 calls soar in Croydon

9:00am Tuesday 25th December 2007

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Alcohol-related 999 ambulance calls have risen by a quarter in Croydon in the past year.

The sharp increase in the past 12 months has cancelled out the previous year's 14 per cent reduction in booze-associated emergency calls, according to the London Ambulance Service (LAS).

“Alcohol-related calls continue to be a real issue for us, especially on both Friday and Saturday nights, and particularly as we know alcohol is a factor in many more of the incidents we are attending, such as assaults and minor falls and injuries."

Russell Smith

New figures revealed there has been an eight per cent rise since the introduction of the new alcohol licensing laws two years ago.

A spokesman for the LAS said: "The increase in the last year alone has been so sharp it cancelled out the previous year's reduction.

"We are finding this has happened all over London. This time last year we were expecting to see a rise a year into the new drinking licensing laws, but instead they went down.

"This time last year we were saying the numbers had reduced, but it's a different story this year."

Over the same two-year period, the total number of ambulance calls in Croydon increased by just 4.5 per cent.

As a proportion of workload for London Ambulance crews, alcohol-related incidents in Croydon between November 24, 2006, and September 30, 2007, comprised 4.2 per cent of all incidents in the area, compared to four per cent in the same period between 2004 and 2005.

However, the London Ambulance Service believes the true figures are likely to be higher because the statistics were based on information received at the time of the 999 call, or where staff have specifically recorded alcohol as being the main reason for attending to a patient.

Across London alcohol-related 999 calls have risen by 12 per cent in the past two years, from 34,707 to 38,849.

The London borough with the highest increase was Kingston, which saw a 35 per cent rise - from 606 to 821.

Russell Smith, LAS deputy director of operations, said: "Alcohol-related calls continue to be a real issue for us, especially on both Friday and Saturday nights, and particularly as we know alcohol is a factor in many more of the incidents we are attending, such as assaults and minor falls and injuries.

"The reported increase in the last year or so has put us under greater pressure to ensure we respond quickly to those other patients with potentially life-threatening emergencies."

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