The RCP has a long history of raising awareness of the health damage caused by alcohol. The College was responsible for setting up the Alcohol Health Alliance UK, which brings together medical bodies, patient representatives, charities and alcohol health campaigners to work together to:
- Highlight the rising levels of alcohol health harm
- Propose evidence-based solutions to reduce this harm
- Influence decision makers to take positive action to address the damage caused by alcohol misuse.
Our mission is to reduce the damage to health caused by alcohol misuse.
On this page:
Latest
August 2009
The Alcohol Health Alliance has issued the following policy briefings:
March 2009
The College submitted evidence to the Health Select Committee Inquiry into Alcohol.
Harm caused by alcohol
In the UK, alcohol harm continues to spiral:
- 13 children a day are hospitalised as a result of alcohol misuse
- Alcoholic liver cirrhosis has increased by 95% since 2000, and by 36% over the last two years to 2006 and is still increasing [1]
- Overall alcohol related deaths increased by 18% from 2002-2005 [2]
- More people die from alcohol related causes than from breast cancer, cervical cancer and MRSA combined [3]
- The ‘passive effects’ of alcohol misuse are catastrophic – rape, sexual assault, domestic and other violence, drunk driving and street disorder - alcohol affects thousands more innocent victims than passive smoking [4].
Many of the solutions which could reverse these trends and reduce alcohol harm remain politically controversial. Yet the evidence which supports them is in many cases overwhelming.
The Alcohol Health Alliance UK works to bring these solutions to the forefront of the debate on how to tackle alcohol health harm.
Key issues
Alcohol treatment and prevention programmes should be funded
Up to 12 million people in this country are dependent on alcohol or drink hazardously compared with 300,000 problematic drug users. Providing drug treatment for users of illegal drugs is a high government priority but there is comparatively little provision of treatment for alcohol related problems. As a consequence, 67% of dependent or harmful drug users have access to treatment, compared with 5.7% [5] for alcohol. The budget for the UK drug strategy in 2005-6 was £1,483 million [6] but there is no dedicated budget for the UK alcohol strategy.
In addition to the absence of dedicated funding for alcohol treatment, there are no targeted waiting times for alcohol treatment and very few alcohol services for people with alcohol related chronic disease, many of whom do not have the features of alcohol dependence and as a result are under the radar of addiction services. In contrast the National Treatment Agency waiting time target for a Drug Intervention Program (DIP) is one week.
Providing adequate treatment for adults and young people would significantly reduce the harm caused by alcohol misuse.
Furthermore despite the wealth of evidence showing that early interventions in hazardous drinkers are both effective and cost effective [7], alcohol prevention strategies are unfunded and as a result very few exist.
Alcohol taxation should be increased
The most effective and cost effective strategy for reducing alcohol harm is to increase tax and reduce availability [7-9]. Evidence suggests that increasing tax on alcohol by only 10% could decrease alcohol related deaths of various forms by 10-30%[9], yet alcohol has become over 50% more affordable in the last 25 years.
In 2001 the Alcohol Harm Reduction Strategy for England[4] found that alcohol causes 22,000 deaths, and the estimated cost of alcohol related harm to health, crime and the workplace was £15.4 billion – a figure which does not include human costs of crime, nor damage to families and children, which were felt to be incalculable[4]. In contrast the income from alcohol duty was £7 billion, with a further £6 billion in VAT[10]. Raising overall alcohol related taxation by 25% would have the double benefit of reducing harmful levels of consumption, whilst providing more than enough funding for the exchequer, to bring alcohol treatment and prevention services up to the level of services provided for users of illegal drugs.
Given the current alcohol problem in the UK - to increase taxation on alcohol, and to improve treatment and prevention services seems both sensible and fair.
There should be better regulation of the drinks industry
In the UK alcohol causes 1,700 accidental deaths, 1,000 suicides, 70% of Accident and Emergency attendances at peak times, resulting in 23,000 hospital admissions for acute intoxication. Young people account for the majority of these problems, and are the major target of alcohol advertising and promotion[9]. The European Court of Justice has unequivocally ruled[9]: “it is in fact undeniable that advertising acts as an encouragement to consumption”.
The government have relied on voluntary agreements and codes with the alcohol industry to curb potentially harmful practices. However with no proactive monitoring of most of the codes, and little assessment of whether these codes are sufficient in the first place, the industry have largely been left free from rigorous scrutiny and accountability for their actions.
The Alcohol Health Alliance UK proposes that alcohol advertising should not be permitted on TV before 9 pm, and in cinemas unless films are 18 rated, and that all alcohol advertising and promotional material must carry information on alcohol health harm and state that alcohol can induce dependency.
In addition to these measures, the laws around not selling alcohol to those who are drunk or under the age of 18 should be properly enforced. The amount of alcohol permissible in the blood stream in relation to drink driving should be reduced to the EU standard of 0.5 g/l, and there should be a near zero alcohol level for new drivers.
References
- Caroline Flint. Response to parliamentary question, Liver disease: alcoholic drinks. Column 312W. 13-3-2007. Hansard.
- Office of National Statistics. Deaths: underlying cause, sex and age-group, 2005: Chapter V. 21-5-2007.
- Cancer Research UK; Cancer Mortality Statistics. 2004.
- Prime Minister’s Strategy Unit. Interim Analytical Report. 2003.
- Alcohol needs assessment research project (ANARP). 2004. Department of Health.
- Home Office. Drug Strategy: 2005-2006 funding. 2006.
- Chisholm D, Rehm J, Van OM et al. Reducing the global burden of hazardous alcohol use: a comparative cost-effectiveness analysis. J Stud Alcohol 2004;65(6):782-93.
- Academy of Medical Sciences. Calling time – The nation’s drinking as a major health issue. 3-1-2004. Academy of Medical Sciences, London.
- Anderson, P. and Baumberg, B. Alcohol in Europe: A public health perspective. 2007. EU Health and Consumer Protection Directorate General.
- Institute of Alcohol Studies. Alcohol: Tax, Price and Public Health. 2007.