15 February 2012

Commenting on today’s announcements from the Prime Minister David Cameron, Sir Ian Gilmore, the RCP’s special adviser on alcohol and the chair of the Alcohol Health Alliance, said:

‘I am delighted that the Prime Minister has given his personal commitment to tackling the huge toll of harm caused by social drinking.  He rightly identifies cheap drink as a major factor and I encourage him to join Scotland, Northern Ireland and Ireland in meeting this head on with a minimum unit price for alcohol.’

In addition to minimum pricing, the following measures would also help to reduce alcohol-related harm:

  • Alcohol should be taxed by how much alcohol a product contains
  • We need stronger measures to protect children and young people from alcohol marketing
  • There should be mandatory labelling on alcohol
  • The NHS needs to provide more services dedicated to recognising, treating and managing people with alcohol dependency and alcohol-related diseases.  These include more alcohol care teams, alcohol specialist nurse services and effective links in alcohol services across primary and secondary car