'Responsibility deal' announced as health groups withdraw

The Government's public health Responsibility Deal was announced today, but has been surrounded by controversy as health groups pulled out from the partnerships. 

The 'Responsibility Deal' includes pledges on key areas of alcohol, food, behaviour change, physical activity and health at work. But this week 6 health groups involved in the alcohol deal pulled out, saying the pledges would not work and were being overly dictated by industry. Today further health groups including the British Heart Foundation also walked away from the deal.

The Health Secretary Andrew Lansley however stood firm, defending the Responsibility Deal as part of a wider public health strategy:

“We know that regulation is costly, can take years and is often only determined at an EU-wide level anyway. That’s why we have to introduce new ways of achieving better results. The deals published today, demonstrate the effectiveness of our radical partnership approach to deliver more and sooner."

The responsibility deal has five core commitments, the third being to "foster a culture of responsible drinking, which will help people to drink within guidelines". It includes agreement with industry to achieve clear unit labelling on over 80% of alcohol by 2013. Last year an independent review found that only 15% of drinks fully met the existing voluntary labelling agreement.

A full list of Responsibility Deal Partners has been made available as well as the pledges in full, which for alcohol also include commitment to:

• simple and consistent information to raise awareness of the unit and calorie content of alcoholic drinks, NHS drinking guidelines, and the health harms associated with exceeding guidelines
• ensuring effective action is taken in all premises to reduce and prevent under-age sales of alcohol (primarily through rigorous application of Challenge 21 and Challenge 25)
• maintaining the levels of financial support and in-kind funding for Drinkaware
• further action on advertising and marketing, namely the development of a new sponsorship code requiring the promotion of responsible drinking
• support for schemes appropriate for local areas to address issues around social and health harms such as Best Bar None and Community Alcohol Partnerships

Also as part of the deal, Heineken is expected to announce it will reduce the alcohol content (ABV) in one of its leading brands, thought to be Strongbow, by 1% (currently 5.3%) by 2013. It will also put unit information on 11 million glasses it produces for pubs and clubs around the country. Asda has pledged to end front-of-store alcohol displays by the end of April and will give £1 million to community projects.

However Don Shenker, chief executive of Alcohol Concern, said it represented "the worst possible deal for everyone who wants to see alcohol harm reduced" and set no sanctions if industry failed on its pledges. Shenker said the pledges were "half-hearted" and that "this government has clearly shown that when it comes to public health its first priority is to side with big business and protect private profit."

But industry bodies defended the deal. Jeremy Beadles, chief executive of the Wine and Spirits Trade Association (WTSA) said "The drinks industry is committed to playing its part alongside other stakeholders in tackling alcohol misuse. We look forward to making further progress in the months ahead." David Poley, chief executive of the Portman Group, said: “The government has set us challenging targets and the industry is rightly determined to play its part in helping to create a responsible drinking culture in the UK.”

A Radio 4 programme heard the BMA's Dr Vivienne Nathanson go head to head with Lansley on alcohol policy and the deal.

Comments

[RSA Online]

Do you think this will work? Too many programs had been done, but has their been any progress? Whatever the government's plan along with the alcohol industries plan, I don't it will work out, since it all ends with the consumers.

[Hermann T. Meyer]

The health groups which pulled out now, knew from the beginning, that this cannot work. They showed good will but it is a waste of time and resources to plan prevention with the alcohol industry.