An open letter to health secretary Wes Streeting is calling for an ‘urgent and ambitious’ strategy to address rising levels of alcohol harm. The call follows what was widely seen as the watering down of alcohol policies in the new ten-year NHS plan for England (https://www.drinkanddrugsnews.com/campaigners-criticise-nhs-plans-lack-of-focus-on-alcohol/).
Signatories to the letter, which stresses the need for a ‘preventative and evidence-led approach’, include the royal colleges of physicians, general practitioners, surgeons and emergency medicine, alongside the BMA, Alcohol Change UK, the Alcohol Health Alliance, Change Grow Live, Waythrough and With You. Alcohol-related deaths and hospital admissions are continuing to rise, the letter states, while key alcohol policies – such as plans to tighten advertising regulations – were reportedly ‘removed’ from the final version of the ten-year plan.
Thirty per cent of UK adults are drinking at risky levels, says the letter, with almost one in 25 new cancers estimated to be alcohol-linked. The impact falls disproportionately on the most deprived communities, it adds, with death rates in the North East of England now overtaking those of Scotland in a ‘stark sign of the growing crisis’. The most recent ONS figure for alcohol-specific deaths in the UK was almost 10,500, the highest number on record and almost 40 per cent up on the total for 2019 (https://www.drinkanddrugsnews.com/alcohol-specific-deaths-hit-highest-ever-level/).
While the letter welcomes some of the policies included in the ten-year plan, they are not sufficient to address the ‘scale and complexity’ of alcohol harm, it warns. Among the measures the signatories want to see implemented are stronger marketing restrictions, the introduction of MUP and the reinstatement of the alcohol duty escalator for ‘fairer taxation’. These should go alongside improved NHS support, it says – including ‘resourcing alcohol care teams and integrated services’.
The ten-year plan offered a ‘once-in-a-generation opportunity to shift gear and deliver genuine preventative action that would reverse the rising rates of alcohol-related hospitalisations and deaths we have seen in recent years’, the letter states. ‘While the introduction of mandatory alcohol labelling and increased support for community led schemes is welcome, these measures alone are not sufficient to address the scale and complexity of harm. The public want and deserve action, and we stand ready to work with government to deliver real progress. By taking meaningful and coordinated action now, the burden of alcohol harm can fall significantly within the term of this government, with visible results for families, the NHS, crime, and the economy.’
Open letter at https://ahauk.org/news/health-experts-warn-alcohol-measures-are-not-sufficient-to-stop-harm/