Health and Social Care Bill

Lord MacKenzie of Culkein Excerpts

Wednesday 16th November 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Masham of Ilton]

My Lords, providing services for the prevention and treatment of harmful drinking and alcohol dependence is essential. Alcoholism ruins many lives. There is a very worrying rise in liver disease, especially among young women, caused by a combination of hepatitis C, which we have discussed today, and dangerous levels of drinking. It is causing great pressure on hospitals’ liver disease wards.

Those in young offender institutions and prisons have often been involved in domestic violence, drink-driving, fights and violent crime due to too much alcohol. For years, prisons have had money for drug-abuse rehabilitation, but very little for alcohol misuse, although the problem has been bigger. As a result of the problems alcohol contributes to crime, I hope that the Government will try to promote alcohol-misuse rehabilitation in prisons. It should not be left out.

Huge pressure is put on the staff of A&E departments, especially on Friday and Saturday nights, by alcohol abuse. One young doctor who works in an A&E department here in London told me the other day that he was concerned that it took so much longer to attend to patients who were drunk that he felt that some other patients were being put at risk. Alcohol abuse can cause all sorts of problems. It should have concerted effort spent on it. Many voluntary organisations help with alcohol-abuse rehabilitation, but the private centres are very expensive and are not available to most people. There is also the problem of coaddiction to drugs and alcohol which has affected many young lives.

[Lord MacKenzie of Culkein]

I have put my name to Amendment 202 which deals with general practitioners. I do not intend to detain the Committee because the points I was going to make have already been eloquently made by the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay of Llandaff, and others. I want to reiterate the point about general practitioners not identifying alcohol misuse. For the life of me, I cannot understand why there is no quality assessment framework indicator for screening for alcohol and why that is not part of the programme. There is evidence that screening works, as the noble Lord, Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe, said. It is clinically cost-effective. There is an urgent need to prioritise the issue of alcohol abuse, and this amendment gives us that opportunity. I hope that the Minister will be able to say something positive about that this evening.

[Lord Northbourne]

I rise to support the amendment moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay. One thing that has so far not been mentioned is that it is important to think about the alternatives to alcohol and to regular alcohol use. I used to spend a certain amount of time with very disadvantaged young people, and a great deal of their problem was boredom, inferiority complexes and no belief that there was any real future for them, so let us also think about all sorts of other things that they might be doing.