To ask the Secretary of State for Health what material her Department has provided to schools and colleges to raise awareness of binge drinking. (111001)

The Government’s national campaign “know your limits” is the first to focus on binge drinking. Campaign leaflets on binge drinking and young people are distributed from health promotion units around the country. One of their major customer groups are schools and colleges.

Alcohol education materials are routinely made available to schools and colleges through the network of health promotion units around the country.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health what assessment she has made of the effect on demand for NHS (a) accident and emergency and (b) longer term services of trends in teenage binge drinking. (103044)

Table 1 uses the age group 16 to 19 as a proxy measure for teenage binge drinking. It also uses the Information Centre’s measure of binge drinking—boys drinking more than eight units in one day and girls drinking more than six units a day.

Table 1 shows that, between 1998 and 2004, binge drinking by this age group changed very little.

We are unable to determine if demand by this age group for accident and emergency services has increased, as records are not kept in a way that would allow us to make this assessment.

Table 2 shows that admission to hospital following a visit to accident and emergency by this age group in each year from 1998-99 to 2005-06 rose from 4,114 to 7,237. This is almost entirely due to incidents of acute intoxication in this age group.

Well over 90 per cent. of alcohol related admissions to hospital for this age group come via accident and emergency. Few admissions come from other sources such as GPs or planned admissions, indicating a small burden on longer term services.