THE North-East is still top of the English league table for alcohol-related hospital admissions, despite increasing efforts to persuade people to drink more sensibly.

New statistics for 2012-13 produced by the Health and Social Care Information Centre showed that 67,570 people were admitted to hospital in the North-East for alcohol-related health problems.

While there were more admissions in some other parts of England, the rate of admissions per 100,000 of the population peaked in the region.

In the North-East, 2,500 per 100,000 of the population were admitted to hospital during 2012-13 for alcohol-related reasons.

This contrasted with the rate for England of 1,890 per 100,000.

The North-East’s rate of admissions put the region just ahead of the North-West, which had a rate of 2,280 hospital admissions for alcohol-related health problems in the same period.

Yorkshire and Humberside had the next highest rate with 1,990 admissions for alcohol-related reasons per 100,000 residents.

This contrasted with the South-East, which had the lowest rate of admissions - 1,500 per 100,000 of the population.

Within the North-East the town of Middlesbrough had the highest rate of hospital admissions with 4,320 admissions in total, which is the equivalent of 3,280 hospital admissions per 100,000 residents.

Nationally between 2005 and 2012 the proportion of men who drank alcohol in the week before being interviewed fell from 72 per cent to 64 per cent and the proportion of women doing the same fell from 57 per cent to 52 per cent.

In 2012-13 there were an estimated 1,008,850 admissions in England where an alcohol-related health problem was the main reason for hospital admission.

Males were more likely to be admitted to hospital with alcohol related diseases, injuries and conditions than females, with 65 per cent of the overall admissions being male patients.

However, amongst under 16s, the opposite is true, where females were more likely to be admitted to hospital with alcohol-related disease, injuries and conditions than males, with females accounting for 55 per cent of all admissions.

Between 2009 and 2012 household spending an alcoholic drinks in England increased by 1.3 per cent cent, while alcoholic drinks bought for consumption outside the home fell by 9.8 per cent.