Alcohol related hospital admissions in Kent and Medway have gone up by nearly a third within six years.

The latest figures show 35,130 people received treatment in 2018-19, compared to 27,550 in 2012-13.

KMTV examine worrying figures showing NHS alcohol admissions are on the rise

It amounts to a rise of 27.5%, and has led to warnings that a lack of funding is hurting efforts to rehabilitate those affected - some of whom can battle their addiction for 30 years.

Penny Williams, chief executive officer, of rehabilitation charity the Kenward Trust, said: "It's a real concern because ultimately it's costing all of us far more money to keep treating people in A&E and taking up valuable nursing time and valuable resources instead of putting people through a rehab system like ours, where the costs are minimal in comparison.

"We have a very, very high success ratio putting families back together, putting people back into the community, and contributing back to society."

Ms Williams said the Maidstone-based charity has seen a recent increase in referrals from across the country, including as far north as Nottingham.

"The government needs to think seriously about reinvesting - we've seen massive decreases of up to 16% in investment in drug and alcohol addiction, and in particular rehab because it's seen as expensive.

"But actually the reality is that it saves money longer term.

"So that's what our message is, now we've got Brexit out the way, and arguably a lot of money has been hoarded and not put through social services, we would like to see a lot more money from into this sector."

In total 216,370 people in Kent and Medway ended up in A&E between 2012-13 and 2018-19 due to alcohol related issues - 65% of which were men.

Ms Williams added: "I don't think many other factors have changed, but arguably life is more stressful and people are turning to alcohol for self medication," she said.

"But I think fundamentally, there is so little focus on rehab being ultimately the way to change behaviours.

"It's no good just putting people on prescriptions, you need to give them time and support to overcome their addiction."

The data, published by NHS Digital, show alcohol accounted for 358,000 admissions to hospitals across England in 2018-19, a 6% rise from 2017-18.

Of these men accounted for 62% of patients, while 40% of the total were aged between 45 and 64.

Officials said those involved either had an alcohol-related disease or had injured themselves as a result of drinking too much.

Other key figures in the report included:

• There were 5,698 deaths specifically attributed to alcohol in 2018 - 2% fewer than in 2017
• 77% of alcohol related deaths happened in people aged 40 to 69
• People aged 65 to 74 had the highest average weekly alcohol spend of £10.60

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