By DANIEL MARTIN

Last updated at 08:28 05 November 2007

The number of under-18s being treated for alcohol abuse has soared by 40 per cent in a year.

Children as young as ten are receiving treatments of up to three years, ranging from residential rehabilitation to specialist counselling.

More than half are female, and experts are increasingly concerned about the influence of "ladette" celebrities such as Amy Winehouse and Lily Allen on impressionable girls.

Figures from the National Treatment Agency show that the total number of under-18s in alcohol treatment programmes has risen from 4,781 in 2006 to 6,707 in 2007.

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The highest rise was among those aged 12 to 14 - up 62 per cent to 953.

Professor Ian Gilmore, president of the Royal College of Physicians, has called for alcohol advertising to be banned to stem the tide of binge drinking.

He said: "Clearly it's inappropriate for young pop stars, looked upon as role models for young people, to be celebrating or boasting about their misuse of alcohol, and the 'Amy Winehouse factor' isn't helping the situation.

"We know girls' bodies are more sensitive to the effects of alcohol than boys.

"Unless we can stop this heavy drinking culture among young girls, we're more likely to see women with serious liver disease at a younger age in the future."

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Frank Soodeen of Alcohol Concern said the figures were the tip of the iceberg.

"There are more than 800,000 children below the age of 15 drinking regularly in the UK," he said.

"Many of the young people who drink at hazardous levels require a depth of support that is simply not available in the current system."

He said fewer than 150 residential detox beds were available for under-18s.

"We are sleepwalking into a public health crisis if young people drink from an earlier age and start to drink more. The problem clearly starts from a very young age and we need to start focusing on these children. Otherwise we will see more and more older children sprawled on street corners."

Mr Soodeen added that alcohol consumption affects school performance - and is the cause of 14 per cent of school exclusions.

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Professor Mark Bellis, the Government's lead adviser on alcohol, said: "Of 15-year-olds, nearly two thirds have drunk in the past four weeks, and around one in seven of those drinkers consumed enough to vomit.

"The reality is that about 30 per cent of all 15-year-olds think it is OK to get drunk once a week.

"We need to tackle a youth culture in which drunkenness is commonplace, underage access to alcohol relatively easy and alternatives to drinking far too scarce."

Earlier this year, a report found that young girls are drinking nearly twice as much alcohol as they were seven years ago.

It showed that female drinkers aged between 11 and 13 consumed an average of eight units a week, equivalent to four large glasses of wine - more than a bottle.

This is 83 per cent more than they were drinking in 2000.

Male drinkers of the same age consume an average of 12 units a week, or six pints of beer - a rise of 43 per cent.

And a study last year found that 29 per cent of under-18s could buy alcohol in pubs and 21 per cent in off-licences.

The average British adult now gets through the equivalent of 37 bottles of whisky a year, European figures showed recently.

But the growing ladette culture means young women who work in offices are twice as likely to drink themselves to death as the rest of the population, according to figures from the Office for National Statistics.

A Department of Health spokesman said: "We have invested significantly in young people's substance misuse services and we are determined to go further by reducing the harm caused to young people by alcohol and educating young people and their parents on the very real harm it causes."