AN A&E expert claims a Colchester hospital is having to deal with drunks every night.

It comes as new figures reveal more than one in three young adults drink to get drunk.

According to research commissioned by alcohol awareness charity Drinkaware, 36 per cent of young people drink with the specific intention of getting drunk.

However, three-quarters of 18 to 24-year-olds said they regret their drunken behaviour, including not knowing how they got home and ending up in hospital.

Helen Krysinski, accident and emergency matron at Colchester General Hospital, said the department dealt with five or six incidents per night every weekend.

“We have a fair amount of people admitted with alcohol intoxication and problems related to that, such as assaults or fights, especially with the younger age group,” she explained.

“Alcohol makes people change their character and they become more aggressive, drain resources, nursing staff, security and the police.

“People who are intoxicated are the more challenging patients and they come in with multiple issues and are usually not co-operative.

“It happens every night and it is also not very nice for other people in the hospital who have to listen to that abuse.”

Drinkaware will be launching its new Why Let Good Times Go Bad? campaign at 16,000 pubs across the country this month to challenge the attitudes and social acceptability of drunkenness among young adults.

Insp Paul Butcher, of Colchester police, said: “We hardly ever have to arrest someone on a night out that is sober, so it is the people who are drunk who take up our resources.

“People of a certain age want to drink, but it is the minority who get very drunk who react badly.”