Alcohol: Call for new strategy targeting older people as deaths reach record high in England

Experts have called for a new alcohol strategy for England as deaths from alcohol reached a record high in 2023, with the average heavy drinker now older.

An analysis by the Nuffield Trust and the Health Foundation showed 8273 deaths from alcohol in England in 2023, up from 5050 in 2006—a 60% increase.1 These were deaths from conditions caused entirely by alcohol consumption, including alcoholic liver disease and accidental poisoning. A further 14 370 deaths in 2023 were from conditions caused partially by alcohol.

The current upward trend in deaths began in 2020 at the start of the covid pandemic, when 6984 deaths were recorded in the year.

The UK’s last national alcohol strategy was published in 2012 and focused much of …