Findings alcohol bulletins: Scotland's Public Health licensing objective; universal screening best?; incentives and commissioning

Recent bulletins and hot topics from the drug and alcohol bank:

Scotland tests whether licensing can serve public health objectives

Scotland’s pioneering alcohol licensing reforms could lead the way for the rest of the UK. A major positive was the brokering role of specialist local authority officers, but the far-reaching innovation of adding public health to licensing objectives foundered on the difficulty of relating decisions on individual premises to health across an area.

Does screening for risky drinking improve on clinical judgement?

At first glance the policy emphasis on systematic screening to identify risky drinkers seems justified by this review. Without this, GPs and other doctors and nurses missed about half the risky drinkers they saw. But that is better than in many screening programmes, prompting the reviewers to query whether these really do improve on clinical judgement.

Incentivising therapists improves performance but not outcomes

Financial incentives may be welcome extra cash for services and workers, but they do not always help the patients. In this US study of young substance users, incentives to therapists improved implementation of a therapy without further helping patients overcome substance use problems. It could be the therapy was not effective enough, or that incentives distorted its implementation.

Also, recent Findings 'hot topics' include:

• What about evidence-based commissioning?

• Why are some treatment services more effective than others?

Also don't forget the Findings Alcohol Matrix (made up of the 'matrix bites') and here for NICE alcohol guidance, standards and tools for alcohol treatment.