Alcoholic Drinks: Misuse

(asked on 4th February 2015) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps his Department has taken to reduce A&E admissions arising from alcohol-related harm.


Answered by
 Portrait
Jane Ellison
This question was answered on 11th February 2015

We have set out the Government’s approach to reducing alcohol-related harm in the Government’s Alcohol Strategy.

In November 2014, Public Health England (PHE) published ‘Alcohol care in England’s hospitals: An opportunity not to be wasted’. The report summarises the evidence of specialist alcohol services’ contribution to patients in secondary care, including the evidence and cost effectiveness of what alcohol care teams can do, such as contributing to a potential reduction in alcohol–related accident and emergency (A&E) attendances. It also explores the interventions that these services might provide and describes current understanding about service provision.

PHE regional centres are also running conferences to highlight the value of alcohol care teams (including Alcohol Liaison Nurses) in hospitals for local stakeholders and are supporting local partners who wish to improve existing services or establish new ones.

PHE has also published guidance to improve support for young people in A&E with alcohol related problems. It is aimed at A&E clinicians, hospital managers, substance misuse and young people’s commissioners and includes a set of key questions or prompts for professionals to help them develop care pathways within A&E and into other services for young people.

We are also taking a number of other actions, for example, by encouraging better sharing of anonymised data on these attendances between National Health Service bodies and the police. This can provide intelligence for licensing decisions, enabling targeting of premises who are contributing to irresponsible sales and drunkenness.

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