Alcohol Policy UK

Liver disease & health inequalities: new data, old approach?

Public Health England (PHE) have announced updated figures on liver disease, with various media reporting on the wide regional variation seen. However those who have been calling for further action to address the burden of liver disease may feel significant changes are yet required to affect real change.

PHE highlight liver disease is almost entirely preventable with the major risk factors, alcohol, obesity and Hepatitis B and C accounting for up to 90% of cases. Liver disease is responsible for almost 12% of deaths in men aged 40 to 49 and is now the fourth most common cause of ‘years of life lost’ in people aged under 75, after heart disease and lung cancer. 

PHE 'All Our Health' alcohol resource

Public Health England (PHE) have released a new online resource 'Alcohol: applying All Our Health', detailing the range of strategic and intervention level approaches available to improve population health.

PHE's All Our Health strategy aims to 'maximise the impact healthcare professionals in England can have on improving health outcomes and reducing health inequalities', with alcohol identified as one of the key indicators in health improvement owing to the 10.4 million adults drinking above the low risk guidelines. The alcohol resource includes:  

1. Introduction
2. Facts about alcohol
3. Core principles for healthcare professionals
4. Interventions
5. Measuring outcomes
6. Examples of good practice
7. Guidance

News & updates July 2017: memory, diabetes benefit?, drunk in charge of a child, school exclusions & more

Selected news and media stories since the June roundup:

Supreme Court judges retired to consider the latest appeal against minimum pricing of alcohol in Scotland, reported BBC News whilst public health experts continued to put forward their case for the policy (eg in the Guardian and Independent). See our report here.

News & updates June 2017: Welsh MUP, white wine, gin lollies, diabetes and hayfever

Selected news and media stories since the May roundup: 

BBC News reported that plans to introduce a new law setting a minimum price for alcohol in Wales could be revived by the Welsh Government, depending on the result of a Supreme Court challenge against similar plans by the Scottish Government.  Meanwhile, the number of alcohol-related deaths in Wales has stabilised following a significant rise towards the end of the last decade, reported WalesOnline.

Local Alcohol Profiles for England 2017: sales, premises & drinking data

Further data has been released for the Local Alcohol Profiles for England (LAPE), providing geographical data on off-sales, licensed premises and adult drinking. Public Health England recently released LAPE data on hospital admissions and mortality to support local level activity.

Key findings include:

• 25.7% of adults in England regularly drank over 14 units per week in 2011-2014.
• 15.5% of adults in England abstained from drinking alcohol in 2011-2014.
• 16.5% of adults in England were binge drinking on their heaviest day from 2011-2014.
• 10.6 units of alcohol per adult per week were sold through the off-trade in England in 2014.

IAS Alert January 2017: marketing, high strength, women in the media, labelling & more

The latest Institute of Alcohol Studies (IAS) Alcohol Alert: January 2017 is now available (here for PDF version). Read the editorial here and articles below:

• TOP STORY: Alcohol marketing rules failing to protect our youth

• Community Alcohol Partnerships “likely to be ineffective”

• Alcohol marketing in Africa violates industry's own marketing codes

• Number of festive drink drivers in Scotland up

Tackling Street Drinking PCC guidance: what's new?

New guidance 'Tackling Street Drinking' [pdf] has been released by a consortium of Police Crime Commissioners (PCCs), which aims to 'reduce the incidents of, and burden from, street drinking and to improve the interventions provided to street drinkers themselves.'

The guidance states that street drinking is a 'widespread and persistent problem', and should be tackled on the basis of negative effects on those who witness it including children, the effect on local businesses, and costs incurred to the public sector.

As such the report identified 'nine areas of action that PCCs can pursue to make a difference':

PHE evidence review 2016: will Government policy respond?

Public Health England (PHE) have released its review of the evidence on actions to address alcohol harms. 

Download The public health burden of alcohol and the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of alcohol control policies: An evidence review [pdf]

The evidence review covers seven key areas:

• Taxation and price regulation
• Regulating marketing
• Regulating availability
• Providing information and education
• Managing the drinking environment

Recovery Partnership treatment quality standards & JSNA update

Recovery Partnership Quality Standard Frameworks

A set of quality standards have been released by the Recovery Partnership to support the delivery of community and residential treatment services, and to set out the outcomes service users and commissioners can expect services to offer.

The Recovery Partnership was formed in May 2011 to provide a collective voice for the treatment sector on the ambitions set out in the 2010 Drug Strategy.

Second phase of 'Local Alcohol Action Areas' (LAAA) open

The Home Office has written to Local Authorities inviting them to apply to take part in the second round of the Local Alcohol Action Area (LAAA) project. Up to 40 areas in England and Wales may be chosen to receive support from 'central government and, where appropriate, the alcohol industry' - see the LAAA round 2 prospectus here [pdf].

The second round was announced earlier this year in the Government’s Modern Crime Prevention Strategy which emphasised local partnership approaches, particularly relating to initiatives to reduce alcohol-related crime and disorder. Local areas applying will be required to 'tackle one or more of a core set of challenges focused on preventing crime and disorder in the night time economy' that include: