by Jo Sword

A Kent paramedic says binge drinkers are diverting ambulance and hospital staff away from people who really need their help.

On the day the Commons Accounts Committee said binge drinking has become a major problem for Primary Care Trusts across the country, David Latham, the clinical team leader at Canterbury ambulance station, agreed and claimed around half the calls his station gets at weekends are drink-related.

Mr Latham also said drunken fights in A&E departments can frighten elderly patients who are genuinely unwell.

He told KentOnline: "What people have got to remember is there are other patients out there who need us. Somebody may have had a heart attack, a stroke, or been involved in a car accident and those people still need us and we still need to deal with them.

"Regularly when crews go out we do see examples of binge drinking. We find people in the street or in the park unconscious. We do go to quite a few fights and I have got to say all those are drink related."

Paramedic David Latham talks about his experiences of binge drinking and what he thinks could be done

He said that most of the problems occur on Friday and Saturday night. "If I do six or eight calls in a night I would probably say half of those are drink related. You have to times that by other crews as well - if we have three crews on a night shift at Canterbury and they are dealing with roughly the same amount that is a lot of our time taken up."

Mr Latham thinks education may be the problem and it could be solved by going into schools.

He said: "We should start in schools and youth groups. Someone from the ambulance service could go into schools and get the message across."