Alcohol Policy UK

Glasgow tops the table for alcohol-related hospital admissions in Scotland

Glasgow has Scotland's highest rate of alcohol-related hospital admissions, new figures have shown. The NHS statistics said an average of 860 people per 100,000 were admitted between 2004 and 2006 in Scotland. But in the east end of Glasgow that rose to 1,505, compared to a regional low of 501 in East Renfrewshire.

Alcohol misuse is estimated to cost Scotland £2.25bn every year, with related deaths more than doubling in the past decade. The statistics showed wide variation across Scotland in the number of people admitted to hospital as a result of alcohol-related illness.

East and south east Glasgow and south east Highland were among the worst areas nationally, parts of which had 3% of the population admitted to hospital at least once because of alcohol. But in areas such as Dumfries and Galloway, East Dunbartonshire and Edinburgh, the admission rate was just 0.2%. BBC News

Download Health and Wellbeing Profiles 2008 report

Funding opportunities for GP alcohol inteventions?

Ministers have put forward plans for  £50 million of clinical funding that would be partly used to pay for Screening and Brief Interventions (SBIs) by GPs. The funding would see the development of a number of Locally Enhanced Services for GPs, a framework by which GPs are paid to screen and offer appropriate interventions to patients.

The clinical funding, if approved, would also pay for enhanced services for GPs to address osteoporosis, heart failure, improved collection of ethnicity data and annual health checks for those with learning disabilities.

However a number of obstacles are likely to affect the implementation of any such clinical programmes within the development of GP services. These include the pay dispute involving the British Medical Association (BMA) and concerns over the position of such proposals in relation to the development of the Quality Outcomes Framework (QOF). Dr Ahmat Fuat, a GP in Darlington and deputy chairman of Primary Care cardio-vascular society, candidly rasied his concerns relating to alcohol treatment in primary care, stating: "You’d probably need £50m to tackle alcohol alone."

The Health Secretary Alan Johnson nonetheless highlighted the opportunities being made available within the new agendas, saying:

"‘This is about developing high-quality services with a strong focus on prevention. It’s a great opportunity for entrepreneurial GPs as well as social enterprises, voluntary organisations and the independent sector to develop innovative services."

Increasing numbers of PCTs are already commissioning alcohol enhanced services either through Choosing Health or other local funding streams such as in Lewisham.

For more information follow the Pulse medical journal for GPs.

Alcohol Primary Care Service Framework released

The NHS have released Primary Care Service Framework: Alcohol Services in Primary Care, designed to support commissioners, practitioners and providers in setting up alcohol interventions in primary care.

The document is likely to be welcomed across the country as increasing numbers of PCTs and local authorities are setting up Screening and Brief Intervention programmes within primary care settings, particularly with General Practitioners and in cases other settings such as pharmacies.

Previously there had been no specific frameworks to help local commissioners and practitioners set up such programmes, despite national guidance such as Models of Care for Alcohol Misusers (MoCAM) and Alcohol Misuse Interventions: Guidance on developing a local programme of improvement. The Alcohol Services in Primary Care Framework may be particularly useful in helping commissioners and practitioners:

• Scope and define suitable services
• Identify key agendas and frameworks
• Identify suitable evidence bases and local need
• Identify service objectives and intended health outcomes
• Set up suitable governance, monitoring and evaluation arrangements
• Identify suitable contract management
• Identify suitable review, variation and recommissioning process
• Find supporting documents, guidance, definitions and Read codes

Where commissioners may still be stuck is around pricing of services with no recommended or nationally agreed prices.

The new framework comes as part of 6 new Primary Care Service Frameworks falling within objectives of providing enhanced, localised service provision within the Practice Based Commissioning agenda.

Jobs: 3 alcohol health promotion posts in Camden -18th of June deadline

Three alcohol Health Promotion Speciailists are to be recruited in the London Borough of Camden to deliver improvements in health and the reduction of inequalities relating to alcohol misuse. The posts wil lead on developing prevention and intervention campaigns, help co-ordinate education and support programmes and work with council colleagues and the alcohol industry to promote sensible drinking.

There are to be three specific areas for each of the jobs:

1) Alcohol and young adults
2) Adults and the workplace
3) Alcohol and children 

For further details please see the NHS site here

The deadlinr for applications is 18^th June 2008

Successful applicants selected for interview will be notified on Monday 23^rd June 2008

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Interview Date: 26^th June 2008

Joseph Rowntree Foundation announce calls for proposals on 'Multiple Exclusion Homelessness'

A collaboration of key agencies have announced a 680K call for proposals to 'ensure that policy and practice responses to multiple exclusion homelessness are better informed by robust evidence.'

The Economic & Social Research Council (ESRC) have joined up with the Joespeh Rowntree Foundation, the Department for Communities and Local Government (CLG), and voluntary sector agencies such as Homeless Link to invite for proposals.

The specific objectives of the research have been announced as:

• to develop a scientifically rigorous account of the relationship between homelessness and other dimensions of 'deep' social exclusion;
• to attain a theoretically-informed understanding of the causes of multiple exclusion homelessness; and
• to shift thinking on multiple exclusion homelessness away from ‘a priori’ organisational categorisations, towards inductive analyses which start from the perspectives of people with relevant first-hand experience.

The deadline for receipt of applications is 4pm on 7 August 2008 though a launch event will be taking place on the 25th of June.

For more information or to book a place on the launch event see here

Alcohol hospital admissions hit squad announced

A specialist squad is to be set up to help towns with the most drink-related hospital admissions fight their alcohol problems.  Health Secretary Alan Johnson announced the formation of the National Alcohol Support Team during a speech on tackling health inequalities.

The 10 worst-affected towns or local authority areas across England will get targeted support by March next year. The Alcohol Support Team will be made up of civil servants who will advise primary care trusts about how they can tackle alcohol misuse in their areas.

Measures could include introducing specialist alcohol nurses into A&E to offer support to patients for drinking-related problems, or offering safe drinking advice in settings such as sexual health clinics. The Department of Health highlighted evidence to show that for every eight people who received brief advice, one cut down on the amount of alcohol they drank. In addition to the 10 visits in this financial year, there will be around 18 visits in 2009-10, and at least 20 the following year.  BBC News

For more information, see this previous post.

Alcohol Concern report: The extent of local alcohol commissioning?

Alcohol Concern have released The Poor Relation - has the emphasis on 'localism' really improved alcohol commissioning, which sets out the findings from Freedom of Information requests asking PCTs for data on a number of key alcohol spend indicators including:

• Spend on alcohol treatment  for 07/08 (and whether the £15 million Choosing Health money was used locally or not)
• Data on waiting times for accessing alcohol treatment
• The percentage of dependant drinkers in treatment
• Whether trusts had any information about hazardous, harmful and dependant drinkers

Nearly 40% of the trusts were not able to return the questionnaire but the report provides a compelling analysis of the extent of investment into alcohol treatment and of the changes to commissioning structures and the devolving of decisions to local level.  The report points out that 'MoCAM and other Department of Health related guidance have not improved alcohol commissioning or treatment provision at the local level.'  There is still a 'postcode lottery' concerning alcohol treatment, with huge variations in spend and provision across the country.

  The report recommends that:

• the local Pooled Treatment Budgets (for drug treatment) should include the funding of alcohol treatment where required in addition to existing PCT or local authority alcohol spend
• the Department of Health should set an optimum level of access for alcohol treatment, reducing the current national average of 1 in 18 to around 1 in 7
• the Department of Health should consider requiring local commissioners to reduce alcohol treatment waiting times to those for drug treatment, since alcohol treatment data must now be submitted to the National Drug Treatment Monitoring System (NDTMS)
• PCTs should make better cases for investment in alcohol treatment
• Strategic Health Authorities should ensure their local PCTs are meeting local alcohol treatment needs through key agendas and commissioning structures including Standards for Better Health

CMO report on alcohol and the public health published

The Association of Public Health Observatories has produced the eighth in a series of national reports for the Chief Medical Officer, on alcohol.  Indications of Public Health in the English Regions 8: Alcohol key findings:

1. There are very evident variations between regions across nearly all indicators, with life lost, rates of mortality, admission to hospital, incapacity due to alcoholism, visits to a pub/bar and binge, hazardous and harmful drinking all showing much higher levels in the more deprived regions of England compared to the more affluent regions.
2. For some indicators, the gap between regions is widening, thereby increasing health inequalities related to alcohol use.
3. There are massive differences in the health consequences of alcohol use between richer and poorer local communities across all regions of England.
4. A more detailed look at inequalities between different communities has been undertaken by comparing alcohol-related measures across different lifestyle groups. These use geography and behavioural information to classify people by where and how they live and reveal remarkable differences between the rich and the poor whilst also highlighting particular communities  that have additional alcohol issues.
5. Life lost from mortality due to alcohol is increasing.
6. The regional pattern in mortality and hospital admission due to alcohol are paralleled by patterns of excessive alcohol consumption.
7. In all regions, people are now more likely to believe alcohol is a cause of crime. In the most recent surveys in England (2004/05-2005/06), 48% of people believed alcohol to be a major cause of crime compared with 36% two years earlier and 5.7% thought alcohol was the main cause of crime compared with only 3.7% two years earlier.
8. The potential effect of alcohol on regional economies follows the general pattern of worklessness across England, with the proportion of the working population claiming incapacity benefits due to alcoholism being three times higher in the North West than in the East of England. The North East has the second highest rate. However, the percentage of all claims that are due to alcoholism is highest in London, the South East, the South West and the North West.
9. With regard to personal economics, people living in northern regions purchase the greatest amounts of alcohol per week, as a proportion of total expenditure on both household foods and eating out, and central regions purchase the smallest amounts. When eating out, people living in the north of England spend a higher proportion of their meal costs on alcohol (36-38% of spend) than people in the south (28-29% of spend).
10. Although decreasing slightly in recent years, a greater proportion of the adult population regularly visits a pub or bar in the north of England than in the south. This in itself might not be a detrimental behaviour if it were linked with positive social interactions akin to the ‘Pub is the Hub’ initiative. However, as highlighted in this report, regular visits to a pub or bar (and similarly to a nightclub or disco) actually show the same regional divide as excessive alcohol consumption and its related harms. Thus, a great deal more work would be required to elicit the positive benefits of social interaction and community wellbeing from the northern binge drinking culture.

Alcohol misuse in the South East region - new report from SEPHO

South East Public Health Observatory (SEPHO) has published a report presenting data on alcohol in the South East region, as part of its Choosing Health series. The main purpose of the report is to describe the pattern and impact of alcohol consumption in the region. It also highlights the relationship between alcohol and health and its association with crime, and sets out ways of tackling alcohol-related issues.

Download Choosing Health in the South East: Alcohol

Alcohol Policy UK podcast: reducing alcohol-related health inequalities in Blackpool (APUK07)

00.00 Intro, music by Kaimoku

00.36 feedback on alcohol free days and guidance on sensible limits; comment from David; original 1995 guidance

03.07 Blackpool's alcohol strategy: an interview with Ian Treasure, Alcohol Harm Reduction Policy Officer; Blackpool Alcohol Strategy; strategy Action Plan; HSJ awards; ALTN8 campaign; Know Your Limit campaign; Blackpool Local Area Agreement; Local Alcohol Strategy Toolkit

 

26.10 Get in touch: email us or send an audio comment using waxmail or MP3 to contact@alcoholpolicy.net leave comment on the site, leave a voicemail on mobotalk (see right hand panel)

26.57 100 Dollar Hangover by Lords of the Highway

 

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