DOCTORS helping patients battle their alcohol booze habits have spoken of the success of the city’s first women-only support clinic.

Bradford Royal Infirmary’s single-sex service is its latest weapon to fight the soaring costs of alcohol-related treatment.

In 2012, the total cost of such support across Bradford was estimated at £35 million, including £6.7 million in A&E attendances and £7 million in outpatients appointments, equating to £88 per adult.

Dr Paul Southern, a consultant hepatologist, said Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust had started the weekly clinic as a small project earlier this year.

He added: “The view was that there was a need to have a single sex clinic. It’s important people don’t feel anxious and feel they are in a safe environment, sometimes people are coming because of issues like domestic violence so we need to be aware of that.”

Dr Southern said although alcohol-related hospital admissions were falling for women in the city for women, there was still work to do to cut cases and help women reduce their alcohol intake.

He has previously highlighted excessive drinking as causing a “worrying” rise in cases of liver cancer and placing a huge burden on hospital finances.

The latest hospital admission figures linked to alcohol show there were 4,070 women admitted to hospital in the district in 2012/13 compared to 4,320 in 2010/11.

Dr Southern added: “Admissions are improving and that is down to a real push we’ve been having in Bradford to get the support people need at home from their GPs, the voluntary sector.

“We are lucky in Bradford we have a variety of offerings for people needing help. The key thing in Bradford is that not one size fits all and we have a number of different services people can get support from.

“This clinic is just one and it can lead to more formal help like the Piccadilly project or other groups.

“For some people just the advice we give at one or two sessions is enough to look at the triggers, get advice and start reducing,” Dr Southern said.

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New figures from Pubic Health England released yesterday to mark the start of Alcohol Awareness Week have revealed a worrying number of older women are entering formal treatment for alcoholism.

Nearly one in ten of those starting treatment is a woman aged 60 or over, which compares to six per cent five years ago. Meanwhile, women beginning treatment for alcoholism between the ages of 18 and 29 has gone down.

Dr Southern said: “Although I don’t have the statistics to back that up in Bradford, it’s not a surprise to me, it’s something I recognise.”

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