'Alcohol-use disorders: preventing the development of hazardous and harmful drinking' has been released today. The guidance, produced by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE), is for government, industry and commerce, the NHS and all
those whose actions affect the population’s attitude to – and use of –
alcohol.
The document makes a number of recommendations including strong calls for pricing measures and changes in how alcohol is marketed. See here for BBC coverage. You can access a podcast to hear Professor Eileen Kaner and Professor Anne Ludbrook discuss the guidance, or read Alcohol Concern's press release.
Further NICE guidance on alcohol can be found here.
Podcast fans and regular APUK readers may be wondering where the Alcohol Policy UK podcast has got to. Well, we will be relaunching it bigger and better very soon.
The shout has gone out for a new producer for the podcast, via Adam (The Podfather) Curry's Daily Source Code. Listen to the show here (the alcohol bit is at 29 mins 32). Thanks Adam.
The fifth in the alcoholpolicy.net/LDAN 2007 series of alcohol strategy action planning workshops looked at alcohol-related domestic violence, and interventions with perpetrators. The workshop featured speakers, discussion and debate.
Below is audio from the first part of the session. The workshop report and audio from Christine Noon (talking about Probation's response) and Keri Abbadi (joint working through the MARAC) will be added shortly.
We reported in August that alcohol and drug services are required to submit alcohol data to the National Drug Treatment Monitoring System (NDTMS) from April 2008. I asked Don Shenker, Director of Policy and Services at Alcohol Concern for some background to this, and about support for services in meeting this requirement. Here's what he said:
Meanwhile, Mary Longley, Primary Care Alcohol Development Facilitator
at Camden PCT sent me this query:
I was wondering, do you have any information about plans to
introduce reporting for alcohol in April 2008? I'm particularly interested
to know if the format of counting the number of days' consumption of alcohol
in the last 28 which is required for current drugs monitoring is going to be
replicated, and how it is intended that any system of quantification be
dovetailed with screening instruments which fail to yield this information
comprehensively?
If any readers have answers or other queries, please do send them in (email me) or leave a comment.
The Alcohol Liaison Forum took place on Wednesday 28th March at the Soho Centre for Health and Care in Central London.
The focus of the event was alcohol liaison work in hospitals and health care settings. It was attended by nurses, alcohol and/or drugs workers with an interest in alcohol liaison
at hospitals or other settings, and other interested parties such as commissioners and service managers.
The first Substance Misuse Liaison Nurses Conference was held in Birmingham in October 2006.
Attendees wanted to keep in touch to discuss the issues of such work, especially with increasing
developments in alcohol liaison in hospitals. Download the programme here.
The speakers include leading experts and practitioners in alcohol liaison work and Wernicke's Encephalopathy.
The speakers (left to right): Moya Forsythe, Robin Touquet, Rachel Cloudesley, Bob Patton, Ruth Cooke, Allan Thomson, Adrian Brown, Irene Guerrini, Paramabandhu Groves
A Merseyside paramedic’s campaign to tackle teenage binge-drinking has been
taken up as an example of good practice by alcohol abuse teams in France, Jersey
and South Africa.
Steve Evans, who works for North West Ambulance Service, has won numerous awards for his Don’t Walk Away campaign designed to
teach young people to deal with the consequences of alcohol abuse.
Since
he started the campaign more than five years ago he has distributed more than 10,000 packs
of information consisting of posters, first aid advice leaflets, power point
presentations, lesson plans and DVDs (see Resources, below), via schools, youth organisations and
simply meeting youngsters on the streets round the region.
Don’t Walk Away takes a hands-on approach to giving young people the knowledge about what to do when one of their group has consumed too much alcohol, by telling them how to put a person into the recovery position to prevent choking, what to do with an unconscious person, how to make the area safe and how to prevent hypothermia.
This podcast features an interview with Steve Evans.
The relationship between alcohol consumption and the risk of stroke is complicated: moderate drinking reduces the risk of some types of stroke, whilst heavy drinking increases the risk of all types. The Stroke Association Factsheet: Alcohol and Stroke explains:
Nearly nine out of 10 strokes are
ischaemic – caused by blood clots
blocking arteries. As with heart attacks,
small amounts of alcohol seem to help
protect against this type of stroke.
The remaining percentage of strokes are
haemorrhagic – bleeding caused by
burst blood vessels in or around the
brain. Alcohol does not protect against
haemorrhagic strokes and even relatively
small amounts of alcohol – two or three
units per day – can double or treble the
risk of having a haemorrhagic stroke.
Recent research has also shown that heavy
drinking increases the risk of all types of
stroke. A large Scottish study, which
followed nearly 6,000 men over a period of
20 years, found that those who drank five
or more units per day were twice as
likely to die from a stroke compared with
those who didn’t drink.
This episode of the Alcohol Policy UK podcast features an interview with Derek Mclean who has written a book, Return Ticket Please about his experiences of surviving an alcohol-related stroke in his 30s.
03.34 problems with comparing alcohol data across Europe; ESPAD;ECAS
05.01 European drinking cultures - stereotypes and reality
06.25 differences in drinking preferences across Europe and the implications for European alcohol policy
07.27 main drinking trends in Europe
09.20 factors involved in trends in youg people's drinking
11.52 recommendations in the report for EU policy
14.11 coordinating acitivity and data across Europe
15.19 Bridging the Gap project to network researchers; Building Capacity project; ELSA (advertising regulations); Pathways for Health (best practice project)
16.55 UK representation on pan European alcohol forums
17.40 building a coallition for alcohol policy
19.30 alcohol industry input to Alcohol in Europe and tactics to discredit the report
23.29 European Commission response to industry pressure
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)
London: The highs and the lows 2 report from the Greater London Alcohol and Drug Alliance (GLADA), was launched by the Mayor of London at City Hall on Monday 22nd January.
This second edition of London: The highs and the lows presents information on alcohol as well as drug use in London (the first edition was drugs only).
The report contains detailed information on the way that drug and alcohol use in London differs from the UK as a whole, and also on the variations across London.
It reveals the complexity of the challenges London faces and re-emphasises the necessity for partnership working to reduce the harm caused by drug and alcohol use.
Working with GLADA, the Mayor is committed to publishing one 'Highs and Lows' report in each Mayoral term and to continuing to support their wider programme of work.
This blog is run by James Morris of the Alcohol Academy and Libby Ranzetta of Ranzetta Consulting to help professionals in the alcohol harm reduction field stay up to date with news and developments. Got a question? Email us or try 0207 450 2930
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