Alcohol Policy UK

NICE consultation on QOF IBA indicators & prevention and treatment guidance

The National Institute for Health Care and Excellence (NICE) is undertaking a consultation to review its guidance on prevention (PH24) and treatment (CG115), and new proposed QOF indicators for alcohol brief intervention in Primary Care.

QOF indicators: a boost for Primary Care IBA?

The Quality and Outcome Framework (QOF) forms a central part of the delivery of Primary Care services, involving a wide range of indicators to measure and incentivise performance against. A new set of alcohol QOF items are being proposed to help prompt alcohol brief intervention (also known as Identification and Brief Advice) when patients present with a number of illnesses or conditions commonly associated with alcohol misuse.

Events & dates 2019: Children of dependent drinkers PHE webinar, Alcohol Change UK, sobriety tags & more

Alcohol services in London: CLAHRC public event

An event to improve care for people with alcohol problems in south London will be held on 2 May for members of the public with experience of alcohol problems help. The event involves a morning of presentations with researchers and clinicians based in south London who are investigating how to improve alcohol services and treatment. See here for further details and contact [email protected] / 0207 848 0437 to register interest.

Children of alcohol dependent parents PHE webinar

Preventing binge drinking in nightlife settings: lessons for the UK?

A new guidance resource for reducing alcohol-related problems in nightlife settings has been released, based on findings from a pan-European project including partners in England.

Download 'STAD in Europe: a manual for communities preventing alcohol related harm' [PDF].

The STAD (STockholm prevents Alcohol and Drug problems) project involved seven European pilots following the original Swedish community-approach to address binge drinking in nightlife settings, first developed in Stockholm in the late 1990's.

Jobs: five Alcohol Change UK positions

Alcohol Change UK, the charity formed last year as a merger of Alcohol Concern and Alcohol Research UK, is advertising a number of positions within the organisation including:

• Consultancy and Training Coordinator
• Director of Research and Policy
• Finance Manager
• Fundraising and Engagement Officer
• Head of Fundraising and Engagement

Full details of the positions can be found here.

Alcohol Change UK states it exists to end the harm from alcohol and to help people across the UK to develop a positive relationship with alcohol through:

Enlightened New Alcohol Research: SHAAP/SARN report

Scottish Health Action on Alcohol Problems (SHAAP) and the Scottish Alcohol Research Network (SARN) have published a report covering six presentations at an event held last year in Edinburgh.

Download the Enlightened New Alcohol Research Symposium report [pdf] here.

The report covers presentations including:

Alcohol and the Global Burden of Disease: Moving beyond the J-Shaped Curve

Max Griswold explored the much debated research on the association of alcohol on disease and mortality, including a Lancet study re-evaluating the last 30 years of alcohol epidemiological research. Key issues include the lack of precision in the measurement of the volume of alcohol consumed in many of the meta-analyses, resulting in a skewing of results which in some cases made it unclear whether or not alcohol had a harmful or protective effect on certain diseases.

Findings bulletins: residential treatment reviewed, brief intervention implementation, domestic violence & more

Recent bulletins from the Findings drug and alcohol bank: 

Glass half full for residential/inpatient treatment of drinking problems in England

For the small cohort of people with severe and chronic drinking problems, this study found that residential and inpatient treatments were effective over half the time based on the important public health indicator of not just completing treatment successfully, but also not returning to treatment within six months. Ground-breaking and important as this is, the findings refer only to people who accessed treatment. What does this mean for those whose vulnerabilities make them eligible for intensive support but go hand-in-hand with significant barriers to treatment?

Can the disappointing roll-out of brief alcohol interventions be cost-effectively turned around?

'No safe level' for stroke - an end for moderate drinking 'health benefits'?

A new study challenging the much debated health benefits claimed for moderate drinking has been published in the Lancet, adding to the evidence that positive health outcomes amongst low level drinkers are less likely to be due to a direct effect of alcohol.

The research, indicating no protective effect of moderate consumption against stroke, follows a large scale study published last year indicating there was no overall beneficial effect of moderate drinking on mortality risk when considering all conditions, despite lower levels of cardiovascular disease among those drinking at low levels. It states 'the apparently protective effects of moderate alcohol intake against stroke are largely non-causal', and that alcohol consumption 'uniformly increases blood pressure and stroke risk'.

News & updates March 2019: Scotland admissions and treatment, cancer, beer, pubs & industry

Selected media stories since the February roundup:

A minimum unit price 'hike' has been mooted by politicians in Scotland following the latest hospital alcohol data, indicating 35,499 hospital admissions in 2017-18, reports the Daily Record (see here for the official statistical release). The report highlighted the significant differences between socioeconomic groups with those in the most deprived areas seven times more likely to be admitted than those from the least deprived areas. Lib Dem health spokesman Alex Cole-Hamilton said: “We’ve set out a clear, practical plan of how to turn this around, including protecting partnership budgets and increasing the minimum unit price.”

IAS Alert March 2019: SHAAP Women's football sponsor, Scottish alcohol policy, marketing & more

The latest Institute of Alcohol Studies (IAS) Alcohol Alert: March 2019 is now available (here for PDF version). Read the editorial here and articles below:

• COVER STORY – SHAAP becomes sponsor of Scottish Women’s Football
• How alcohol companies are using International Women’s Day to sell more drinks to women
• Scottish Labour touts new alcohol tax ahead of spring conference
• Scottish Government urges drinkers to ‘Count 14’
• The CSR doesn’t fall far from the industry
• Creating alcohol labelling chaos
• Ireland: Drink-driving figures slide into reverse
• Marketing linked to youth drinking
• Non-drinkers may still suffer from alcohol
• Ban on duty-free drinks during flights
• Computer says ‘no’: Volvo tech aims to stall drink drivers
• Alcohol, are we kidding ourselves?
• HMRC awarded for tackling alcohol fraud at source
• Lifetime risk of drinking measured in cigarettes
• ALCOHOL SNAPSHOT – Youth drinking in Nordic countries: falling everywhere, but substantial differences remain between countries