Liverpool launches major bid to tackle alcohol harm

Liverpool has unveiled a three-year approach to preventing and reducing alcohol misuse. The city has the highest rates of alcoholrelated hospital admissions in England, and its residents are twice as likely to die from an alcohol specific condition, such as liver disease, as the national average.

‘Reducing Harm, Improving Care’ has been produced by the Liverpool Alcohol Strategy Group, which is jointly chaired by Liverpool Primary Care Trust (PCT) and Liverpool City Council and includes other key agencies in the city.

The strategy sets out plans to double the number of individuals able to access alcohol treatment services, allowing an extra 2,000 people a year to receive help for their drinking. This will involve creating a new Community Alcohol Service, which will provide drop-in clinics between Monday and Friday in each of Liverpool’s five neighbourhood areas. Other initiatives include equipping the city’s frontline NHS workers - such as GPs, nurses and pharmacists - with the skills to identify harmful drinking in patients who may report to them with other symptoms. More than 350 staff have already been trained to identify those individuals who regularly consume alcohol above recommended levels, and offer them practical advice about cutting down. This is part of a wider approach to reach people who often don’t see their drinking as a problem, but who are unknowingly putting themselves at risk of diseases such as cancer, cirrhosis and high blood pressure. It is now estimated that by drinking over the daily recommended limits more than 42% of adult drinkers in Liverpool could fall into this category.

Dr Paula Grey, Director of Public Health for Liverpool, said: “Alcohol contributes to some serious health and social problems in Liverpool - as it does in many other cities - and tackling these issues presents a major challenge. It’s really important that key local agencies, such as the NHS, the local authority and the police, continue to work in partnership to address both the causes and impacts of alcohol misuse. We also need to ensure that the wider population understands what it means to drink at harmful levels. Many of those who exceed recommended daily guidelines associate alcohol misuse with teenage binge drinkers, and do not realise that their own behaviour is putting their health at risk. Part of our challenge is to make sure that people realise what they are consuming and what the effects could be, so that they can make informed decisions.”

In 2010, Liverpool PCT launched a campaign called ‘What’s Yours?’ to raise awareness about recommended daily guidelines for alcohol. It was particularly targeted at drinkers aged between 35 and 55, who might underestimate how many units they are drinking.

Future plans for the What’s Yours? brand include a dedicated website.

Professor Sir Ian Gilmore, liver specialist at the Royal Liverpool Hospital and former President of the Royal College of Physicians, said: “It’s welcoming to see local partnerships taking the initiative by introducing credible interventions to tackle alcohol-related harms and to continue to lobby for more strident national measures to protect the public, like a minimum unit price for alcohol and better control over its availability.”