The Government has been urged to prioritise public health over commercial interests, as leading medics reported “shocking” levels of alcohol-related harm, with a massive 247 per cent increase in discharge rates for alcoholic liver disease among 15- to 34-year-olds between 1995 and 2007.

Lamenting the lack of agreement between Ministers over the recommendation to restrict the sponsorship of sports and cultural events by alcohol companies, the medics said they were now seeing patients aged in their 20s and 30s dying from liver disease secondary to alcohol.

Acknowledging that Government had been slow in acting in relation to alcohol, public health specialist Prof Joe Barry — speaking as a member of the Royal College of Physicians’ Policy Group on Alcohol, which this week launched its first policy document on reducing alcohol harm — said it had taken a long time before it acted on reducing road traffic deaths, but no-one drank and drove nowadays.....