NHS North West recommends tackling high levels of alcohol harm

NHS NorthWest has published a report which outlines its recommendations for tackling excessive drinking in the region. The public health team at the Strategic Health Authority carried out an audit of alcohol strategies being developed by PCTs to reverse the growing number of binge drinkers in the region.

Alcohol misuse has already been identified as a major health concern across the North West due to rising levels of alcohol consumption, which are outstripping national trends and a rising incidence of cirrhosis and other alcohol-related gastrointestinal disorders.

In April 2006, Liverpool John Moores University, in conjunction with the North West Public Health Observatory and the Government Office for the North West, produced a set of nine Regional Alcohol Indicators that provided data on the following issues by each Local Authority across the North

West region:

  • Binge drinking
  • Hospital admissions for alcohol specific conditions
  • Hospital admissions for all conditions attributable to alcohol
  • Reduced life expectancy
  • Crime
  • Violent offences
  • Sexual offence
  • Drink driving
  • Premises licensed to sell alcohol

The Regional Alcohol Indicators, produced on behalf of the Regional Alcohol Harm Reduction Strategic Group,were developed to help Local Authorities, Primary Care Trusts and other organisations better understand how alcohol is affecting residents and services. They also demonstrate how interventions should be developed and, over time, what measures have helped reduce the negative consequences of alcohol use.

This first set of indicators identifies the extent of alcoholrelated problems in the North West and the areas that are already the worst affected. Key findings include:

More urbanised areas such as Blackpool, Liverpool and Manchester suffer higher levels of alcohol-related harms. For example, the rate of alcoholrelated hospital admission among males in Liverpool is two and a half times higher than that in Fylde. In the latest year (2004/05) the number of persons admitted to hospital for alcohol-related causes were:

  • Over 2,000 women and over 3,300 men in Liverpool; an
  • 230 women and 280 men in Fylde
  • The negative effect of alcohol on life expectancy increased by nearly 25% among both males and females between 1995 and 2004 and now, on average, North West men can expect to lose nearly 11 months of life through alcohol and females over 6 months.
  • The burden of ill-health related to alcohol (measured through hospital admission and life expectancy) falls disproportionately on males and the poorest areas in the region:
  • 38,500 men compared with 25,300 women were admitted to hospital for alcohol-related conditions in 2004/05; and
  • Around 30% of women and 33% of men admitted to hospital for alcohol-related conditions were from the most deprived fifth of Local Authorities.
  • Since 2002/03, recorded crime related to alcohol in the North West has increased by eight per cent (although changes to recording systems contributed to this).

Dr Kate Ardern, of the North West Strategic Health Authority, author of the report in conjunction with the North West Public Health Observatory said, “More people are admitted to hospital because of the effects of excessive drinking in our region than anywhere else. We estimate that men lose an average of 10.59 months of life due to excessive drinking and women 6.10 months. These are very worrying statistics.”

The report acknowledges that a great deal of work is already being done by the health sector and its partners, including local authorities, the police, schools and voluntary organisations, but calls for dedicated funding to deal with the health and social effects of excessive drinking.

The report also urges regional partners to work together to ask Central Government to consider reviewing its current licensing laws. Dr Ardern said, “What we would like to see, is local authorities being given the power to consider the health and social impacts on local communities when granting new alcohol licenses. At the moment this is not included in current legislation in England.”

Brenda Fullard, North West Public Health Policy Lead for Alcohol, said, “This report provides us with a regional baseline of the work that is currently being undertaken to tackle alcohol-related ill health. With this information we have a better understanding of how we can support not only PCTs but their partners including local authorities and the police.

“It will be a mandatory requirement that every local Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnership has an alcohol strategy in place by April 2008.

PCTs are members of those partnerships and will need to ensure that they are actively involved with dedicated budgets in place. Government Office for the North West and the Department of Health in the region will use the report to inform the scrutiny of those strategies with the ultimate aim of reducing alcohol harm within the region.”

A link to the full copy of the audit report is available at: http://www.northwest.nhs.uk/board/papers/2007/september.html