Alcohol Concern have released a Guide to Alcohol for Councillors, which aims to help councillors meet the new commissioning challenges and tackle alcohol abuse in their communities.
As of April 2013, local authorities are responsible for the commissioning of alcohol prevention and treatment services as part of their new public health responsibilities. The guide sets out the context of alcohol harm, local government's role, an action list and other insights such as good practice case studies.
It highlights tackling alcohol misuse will positively affect every key local authority department. Local authorities will also be additionally incentivised and measured against the health indicators set out in the Public Health Outcomes Framework for England 2013 – 2016, and estimates that alcohol plays a role in almost a third of them.Eric Appleby, Chief Executive of Alcohol Concern said:
“With local authorities taking responsibility for public health there is a huge opportunity to begin tackling alcohol harms at a local level and to save lives and cut crime.
“We know that the cost of alcohol misuse is enormous and that it takes its toll on so many aspects of our communities, whether it’s policing, providing hospital treatment or supporting children living with parents with an alcohol problem.
“We produced this guide to illustrate to councillors the extent of the damage done by alcohol misuse and to support them to develop a robust and effective alcohol strategy which benefits their entire community.”
NICE has a comprehensive set of alcohol guidance and quality standards, including alcohol pathways and further tools. NICE also recently released Public Health Guidance for local authorities. Also recently available is commissioning guidance for alcohol and mental health.
DrugScope have released a briefing on 'Public Health Reforms: What they mean for drug and alcohol services'. A recent RCGP briefing explores Primary Care Drug and Alcohol Commissioning. See the Alcohol Learning Centre commissioning pages for more.
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