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Reducing alcohol related harm

The ICS Alcohol Steering Group drives forward the alcohol priority workplan by identifying and facilitating opportunities for the ICS to work with partners to reduce the harms of alcohol.

Useful information and resources

  • Increase awareness of alcohol risk and support for action to address price, promotion, and availability of alcohol in the region
  • Improve identification and access to support for individuals and groups who are at risk from alcohol use
  • Reduce harm experienced by those with problematic alcohol use and dependency

Zero alcohol gives your child the best chance in life. We can all help create super-babies by supporting mum-to-be in not drinking alcohol.

 

If you want to find out more about superbabies visit here.

Wherever someone lives, there will be a service in the area which supports people with alcohol problems. These services can be accessed in a few key ways:

  • A persons GP is the first port of call for alcohol problems. They will be able to provide confidential advice and refer for extra support.
  • To view local support services click here

Other national support services include:

  • Drinkline national alcohol helpline. Call 0300 123 1110 (weekdays 9am to 8pm, weekends 11am to 4pm).
  • Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) is a free self-help group. Its "12 step" programme involves getting sober with the help of regular support groups.
  • Al-Anon family groups offers support and understanding to the families and friends of problem drinkers, whether they're still drinking or not.

Fingertips - is a rich source of indicators across a range of health and wellbeing themes designed to support commissioning to improve health and wellbeing. The alcohol data can be accessed here.

Alcohol toolkit study - a summary of useful national statistics, including information on prevalence of excessive drinking, motivation and attempts to cut down, support used and reasons for cutting down, view the latest data here.

NHS Digital includes information on the below, you can view it here.

  • Alcohol-related road traffic accidents
  • Alcohol affordability
  • Drinking behaviours (adult and young people)
  • Alcohol prescribing in primary care and secondary care.

Health pregnancy indicators for smoking, obesity, early access to maternity services, folic acid supplement use and alcohol and drug misuse in early pregnancy can be viewed here.

Wider impacts of Covid-19 health monitoring tool collates metrics across a range of wider impacts, including alcohol consumption, view it here

Data to support alcohol licensing can be viewed here

Training on the prevention, early identification and management of alcohol harm can be accessed via the The NENC Programme for Alcohol Studies .

This platform has been developed as a collaboration between the North East & North Cumbria ICS and Health Education England North East to provide consistent access to alcohol training for the North East & North Cumbria workforce.

Alcohol identification and brief advice

Alcohol Screening Tools 

Alcohol Structured Advice Tool 

A set of materials to support training and the implementation of IBA in the NHS and other settings

Guidelines

Chief Medical Officers guidelines on low risk drinking 

National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE) alcohol guidelines

Balance briefing on 'Drink Responsibly' messaging - here

North East and North Cumbria ICB introduce new alcohol support for staff. Read it here.

The latest PHE report (July 2021) compares data on alcohol consumption and harm during the pandemic to previous years. Read it here.

The second part of the Dame Carol Black's Independent Review of Drugs has been published on 8 July 2021 - making radical recommendations for drug treatment, recovery and prevention. Read it here.

A study led by researchers from Newcastle University and published in The Lancet Public Health (28 May 2021) which shows a minimum unit price (MUP) policy for alcohol introduced in Scotland in 2018 continues to have a positive impact more than two years on.

New toolkit developed for practitioners working with families affected by co-occurring conditions.

Spotlight

Regional alcohol prevention campaign

The North East and North Cumbria Integrated Care System (NENC ICS) has today launched a new alcohol support service, which is now available for all colleagues to access.

The introduction of DrinkCoach enables all staff to access a completely confidential and simple-to-use platform, and makes use of the DrinkCoach Two Minute Test to evaluate and help you better understand your drinking and the associated risks, as well as access further support where needed.

Read more.

Get involved

Alcohol Clinical Network

This quarterly virtual meeting is a mechanism to bring together the voices of clinicians to advocate for evidence-based policy to reduce alcohol harm and shape the regional alcohol programme.

Please contact leisa.smith1@nhs.net if you would be interested in joining the network or you can join our Future NHS collaboration group here.

For more information contact Sarah Hulse, Alcohol Strategic Manager for the North East and North Cumbria ICS Sarah.Hulse1@nhs.net

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