Based on the latest available information, the Institute of Alcohol Studies (IAS) has published a series of estimations on alcohol’s costs to England in 2024.
According to these estimates, the total annual cost of alcohol to England amounts to £27.4 billion. This is close to a 40% increase compared to the figures reported in 2003.
England raises about £12.5 billion in alcohol taxes each year. The disparity shows the extent to which the alcohol industry’s negative impact on society dwarfs any economic contribution it makes. Roughly speaking, alcohol costs the country £485 per person, per year.
IAS provides a further breakdown of these costs in a factsheet as follows.
The alcohol cost breakdown
The cost of alcohol harm and its wider economic burden can be broken down into four major areas:
- The NHS and healthcare cost: £4.91 billion, which amounts to £86.87 per capita.
- Crime and disorder: £14.6 billion, amounting to £257.96 per capita.
- Wider economic impact cost: £5.06 billion, which amounts to £89.43 per capita.
- Social Services cost: £2.89 billion, amounting to £51.11 per capita.
Breaking down England’s alcohol-related healthcare costs
Alcohol harm severely burdens the healthcare system, which is under immense pressure and dysfunctional in the UK. The cost of alcohol harm and its negative impact on the health system’s functioning and capacity can be illustrated with a range of data points:
- Alcohol-related hospital admissions costs: £2,225m.
- Outpatient visits costs: £533m.
- Alcohol-related A&E visits cost: £1,070m.
- Alcohol-related ambulance call-outs cost: £857m.
- Alcohol-related healthcare appointments costs: £90m.
- Alcohol dependency drugs costs: £4.7m.
- Specialist treatment for alcohol costs: £73m.
- Other alcohol-related healthcare costs: £58m.
These massive healthcare costs due to alcohol harm are affecting people, communities, and society at large as preventable alcohol harms cut into scarce resources for healthcare. At the same time, healthcare costs due to alcohol harm are not even the biggest category of costs. Crime and disorder costs due to alcohol drain precious resources from England.
Alcohol costs related to crime and disorder
The IAS breaks down alcohol’s cost in relation to crime and disorder as follows:
- Costs borne in anticipation of crime (e.g. money spent on crime detection/prevention such as burglar alarms): £830.0m
- Costs borne in consequence of crime (e.g. cost of stolen or damaged property and emotional harm to the victim): £9,284.1m
- Costs borne in response to crime (e.g. costs to the police and criminal justice system): £4,470.0m
Alcohol’s costs in relation to its wider economic impact
- 44% of alcohol’s wider economic cost is incurred as a result of presenteeism (present at work but with reduced productivity): £2,206m.
- 35% is incurred as a result of absenteeism (not at work due to illness): £1,754m.
- 22% is incurred as a result of unemployment: £1,096m.
Alcohol’s burden on the social service system
The IAS provides these figures by ascertaining local authority budgets estimated to be attributable to alcohol harm.
- Cost of alcohol treatment and support services: £185 million.
- For adults: £171m
- For children: £14m
- Costs of child social services attributable to alcohol: £2,705m.
Need for alcohol policy action to prevent harms and reduce costs
The new IAS figures illustrate the massive costs alcohol harm causes to English society and elicit calls for urgent policy action. These calls express the need to make alcohol less affordable, and less available, especially for vulnerable groups, such as children, youth and people in recovery from alcohol use disorder.
According to Dr Katherine Severi, IAS chief executive, the new estimates show the financial costs of rising alcohol harm that civil society has expressed concerns about for years. Preventing this economic loss entails the formulation and implementation of a comprehensive policy.
Professor Sir Ian Gilmore, chair of the Alcohol Health Alliance, also emphasized the government’s responsibility to prioritize alcohol policy over alcohol profits.
…so much of the UK’s policymaking is in thrall to Big Alcohol, which overplays its economic contribution while underplaying the massive cost of harm. A truly responsible government would understand that tackling alcohol harm should hold primacy over the industry making money for its shareholders.”
Professor Sir Ian Gilmore, Chair, Alcohol Health Alliance
Alice Wiseman, the vice-president of the Association of Directors of Public Health, spoke out against the presentation of alcohol as a ‘safe’ product, as per The Guardian reporting.
The alcohol industry’s huge marketing machine needs to be regulated much more rigorously so that we are no longer bombarded with the message that alcohol is a safe, attractive product.
What’s needed now is for the government to take action and develop a new alcohol strategy so that we can drive down the increasing, and unacceptable, cost of alcohol harm.”
Alice Wiseman, Vice-President, Association of Directors of Public Health
The Commons Health and Social Care Select Committee is due to hear evidence on alcohol harm in the weeks to come. The hearing is part of the committee’s inquiry into preventing the health harms of alcohol and other drugs consumption and gambling.
According to Dr Katherine Severi, the IAS chief executive, the data on alcohol harm is compelling.
As a country we cannot afford to sit back and do nothing. The government should develop a comprehensive alcohol strategy to tackle this rising harm, which would have a knock-on effect of reducing the financial burden too.”
Dr Katherine Severi, Chief Executive, Institute of Alcohol Studies
How Big Alcohol impedes economic growth and productivity around the world
Movendi International has documented the extent to which alcohol harm hinders economic growth and productivity around the world.
The costs due to the harm caused by the products and practices of the alcohol industry are a major obstacle to achieve SDG 8: “Promote sustained, inclusive, and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment, and decent work for all”.
The products and practices of Big Alcohol cause multiple economic harms:
- Alcohol harms human capital and drains societies’ resources,
- Alcohol impedes economic growth,
- Alcohol leads to staggering costs due to lost productivity,
- Alcohol harms economic activity,
- Alcohol contributes to significant proportion of youth not being education, employment or training (NEET),
- Alcohol fuels workplace harm through absenteeism and presenteeism, and
- Big Alcohol fuels harm through workers’ rights abuses.
The economic burden of alcohol worldwide is substantial.
For example, a landmark 2021 study estimated the economic costs of alcohol to amount to 1306 Int$ per adult, or 2.6% of the GDP. About one-third of costs (38.8%) were incurred through direct costs, while the majority of costs were due to losses in productivity (61.2%).
- Adjusting for the omission of cost components, the economic costs of alcohol consumption were estimated to amount to 1306 Int$ per adult, or 2.6% of the GDP.
- About one-third of costs (38.8%) were incurred through direct costs, while the majority of costs were due to losses in productivity (61.2%).
The products and practices of the alcohol industry drain precious resources from countries around the world. These heavy health, social, and economic costs are even more harmful now since governments need more resources to recover and build back better from the COVID-19 pandemic.
In a Special Alcohol Issues Feature, Movendi International gathers the information on economic harm caused by the alcohol industry in OECD countries, and specifically in Norway, Australia, Canada, Germany, Sweden, France, the Netherlands, New Zealand, and the UK, the United States, as well as in low- and middle-income countries, such as Sri Lanka and India.
The Special Feature also explores concrete types of economic harm, such as workplace harm and productivity loss, as well as loss of economic growth, healthcare spending and more – in this way the new IAS data on the massive costs of alcohol harm add to the global overview of the economic damage caused by alcohol.
Sources
Independent: “Harm caused by alcohol costs £27.4bn a year in England – figures“
Institute of Alcohol Studies Official Website: “Factsheet – Economy“
The Guardian: “Alcohol use costing £27bn a year in England“