Trends in young people accessing English alcohol treatment services: 2014 to 2023

Background: Recent reports suggest that the prevalence of alcohol consumption has reduced among young people in England. We used whole population, English substance use treatment data to examine whether there has been a corresponding decrease in the number of young people accessing specialist alcohol treatment. We also examined the trend among young people with the highest levels of alcohol treatment need.

Methods: A retrospective cohort study of all young people (<18 years) entering specialist treatment for alcohol use in all publicly funded services in England between 1 April 2014 and 31 March 2023 (N = 40,119). Analysis of alcohol use severity used complete-case information on indicators of frequency and quantity of alcohol consumption (n = 37,801, 94 %). An examination of trends over time also used the cohort (N = 562,037) of adults (18+ years) entering alcohol treatment over the same period.

Results: There was a 42 % decline in the number of young people entering treatment for alcohol use in England (from 6522 to 3771 per annum). The proportion of the total alcohol treatment population accounted for by young people also decreased from 6.8 % to 4.1 % over the same period. A less steep decline of 24 % (from 508 to 388) was observed in the number of young people entering treatment with severe alcohol use.

Conclusions: Despite the overall reduction in the number of young people accessing alcohol treatment between 2014/15 and 2022/23, it will be necessary to monitor whether this decreasing trend continues, especially among those young people with the most severe alcohol treatment needs. Further research is required to determine to what extent this reduction in treatment numbers is due to reduced treatment capacity rather than changes in treatment need.