Alcohol-related Disease

Lord Ribeiro Excerpts

Wednesday 17th December 2014 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, increasingly, GPs are being made aware of the need to upskill in this area. Of course, it is not just GPs but local authorities who have responsibilities in the arena of public health to make sure that excessive drinking is discouraged. I can write to the noble Lord with the precise details of the GP training that I am aware of.

[Lord Ribeiro (Con)]

My Lords, does my noble friend agree with Professor Roger Williams, author of the Lancet commission report on liver disease, that with more than 1 million admissions per year due to alcohol-related conditions, and the developing tsunami of obesity cases, many of whom will present with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, services will be seriously stretched in the future? What efforts are going to be made to try to stem this tide?

[Earl Howe]

My noble friend is right. I am afraid that the figures for hospital admissions over the past 12 years make gloomy reading. Admissions relating to alcohol-related illness have more than doubled. We welcome the recent falls in alcohol consumption that we are witnessing, and the falls in alcohol-related deaths, but we should not be complacent—and we are not. Harms such as liver disease, as well as social impacts such as crime and domestic violence linked to alcohol, remain much too high, and Public Health England is giving priority to alcohol issues from this year, particularly through support to local authorities.