MEN who live in Weymouth and Portland are more likely to be admitted to hospital with an alcohol-related condition that anyone else in the county, new figures show.

Statistics released by Public Health England statistics revealed that the number of male patients from Weymouth and Portland who attended hospital with an alcohol-related diagnosis was 724 per 10,000 people last year, almost double the amount of woman who get admitted which was 439.

The figure was also higher than the Dorset average of 588 per 100,000 males and almost double the number of females at 288 per 100,000.

West Dorset also had a higher than average with the rate for men was 661 per 100,000, while for women it sat at 429 while in Purbeck the rate sat at 661 per 100,000 people for men and 421 per 100,000 people for women.

The statistics focused on admissions where the primary diagnosis or any of the secondary diagnoses are due to alcohol.

Conditions with a main cause of alcohol include liver cirrhosis and alcohol poisoning, while drinking can also lead to forms of cancer and heart disease.

Dr Richard Piper, chief executive of independent alcohol research and awareness charity Alcohol Research UK, said: “Alcohol is the biggest cause of death, ill-health and disability for people aged 15-49 in the UK – but these tragedies are all totally avoidable.”

Dr James Nicholls, director of research and policy development at the charity, added: “Men continue to have the highest rates of hospital admissions – this pattern is reflected in Dorset – which is mostly because men are much more likely to drink heavily than women.

“However, in under-18s, women are more likely than men to be admitted for an alcohol-specific condition.

“This is both due to physiological differences between young men and women, but also an increasing convergence in drinking behaviours (especially around binge drinking) across genders in young people.”

The charity added that alcohol-related hospital admissions had been stabilising in recent years, but are still around 20 per cent higher than they were in 2005.

However, hospital admissions for younger drinkers were falling, reflecting a long-term decline in youth consumption over the last decade.

At the same time, admissions were the highest among people aged between 45 and 64.