E-bulletin for August 2008
Headlines
Articles
From Policy to Project
Portsmouth Alcohol Harm Reduction Strategy and linked projects
Portsmouth's Alcohol Harm Reduction Strategy 2006 to 2009 is split into four main situations where alcohol has an impact. These are the home, the workplace; public places and health services. Each section has a background of the situation and how this applies to Portsmouth.
The Portsmouth Residents Drug and Alcohol Survey was completed in 2003 and found that 26% of residents admitted to regular binge drinking (more than six drinks on one occasion) and that 40% of residents drink about the recommended daily guidelines.
In 2004 the Portsmouth Drug Action Team and the Crime and Disorder Strategic Partnerships merged together to form the Safer Portsmouth Partnership. This Partnership is responsible for how various partners to work together to reduce problems associated with alcohol misuse in Portsmouth.
The projects directly linked to this strategy and developed from the strategy include:
- Alcohol Interventions Team: Introduced in July 2008, the Portsmouth Alcohol Intervention Team consists of four brief intervention practitioners, a team leader and an administrative support. The team delivers brief interventions to clients in a range of health and probation settings, and makes referrals to specialist treatment services where appropriate.
Around 10 GP practices have joined the project, with 8 expressing a strong interest in hosting a brief intervention clinic. Link
- Alcohol Arrest Referral: An Alcohol Arrest Referral service is provided in the custody suite in Portsmouth. Offenders are screening in custody using the AUDIT questionnaire and along with the client preference offered an appropriate intervention. This ranges from being offered advice and leaflets to appointments with health practitioners or referral to specialist alcohol treatment service.
During the pilot for Oct 2007 to Feb 2008 data was collect on 102 clients was collected, of those clients 88% of those detainees seen by an alcohol worker were male and were under 25. The highest scores recorded on the AUDIT test were mostly from 41 to 55 age group. Link
New Additions
Warrington A&E Brief Interventions Project
Since March 2006, an Alcohol Specialist Nurse (ASN) has delivered training to hospital staff in screening and brief interventions at North Cheshire Hospital Trust. Patients attending A&E are screened by the trained staff using an adapted version of the AUDIT screening tool.
The Alcohol Specialist Nurse has also developed alcohol pathways within North Cheshire Hospital. Tier 3 interventions are beginning to be delivered within the hospital setting prior to clients completing treatment with the Warrington Alcohol Service.
The service also works with a volunteer pilot project working to buddy dependant drinkers admitted to the hospital and help them to access alcohol services and works with community mental health to support case management of drinkers attending A&E with complex needs.
Oxford Information Sharing
In March 2007, Oxford's John Radcliffe and Horton hospitals began an information sharing initiative between their A&E departments and the local Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnership (CDRP). The project is part of Government Office South East's (GOSE) regional data sharing initiative that aims to build closer relationships between NHS and CDRP activity at local level.
The Oxford initiative collates data related to alcohol-related crime and disorder and domestic violence from patients attending the A&E departments via paper questionnaires that are held at A&E reception. These are then passed to the CDRP for analysis.
The project has identified premises have higher incidents of glass and bottle related injuries in the area. It has also highlighted patterns in the A&E attendances, such as: drink spiking incident statistics and types of weapons used in assaults.
The Oxford information sharing project is part of the Government Office of the South East Regional A&E data collection and sharing initiative featured in last month's e-bulletin.
Updates from Alcohol Concern and the Department of Health
Submit your own project to the HubCAPP database
The HubCAPP team is extremely excited that people are now able to self submit a project to the HubCAPP database.
We have endeavoured to make the process of submitting a project as easy as possible. If you are submitting a project, please don't re-write information that doesn't already exist or if you have documents that answer the questions we are asking you can upload as well.
You can also suggest a project. If you feel that there is a project that should be listed on HubCAPP you can suggest these to us. Both the project being suggested and the HubCAPP team will be notified and we will follow up on the information that is given.
Thank you to the volunteers who have worked hard to test our new facilities. We appreciate your time and effort in testing these very much.
Alcohol Liaison Seminar Presentations
HubCAPP is pleased to host the presentations from the Alcohol Liaison Seminar. The seminar took place in Leicestershire during June. The emphasis was on alcohol liaison work in hospitals and health care settings with key note presentations. View presentations
Hospital Admissions for Alcohol-related harm
The Department of Health published a new data on alcohol-related hospital admissions, this data provides a more accurate picture of alcohol-related hospital admissions using new methodology.
Previously, admissions statistics only counted the three most common types of alcohol-related diseases: alcoholic liver disease, alcohol poisoning, and mental and behavioural disorders. The new methodology measures a total of 44 conditions which research shows are caused by or strongly associated with alcohol consumption. The new figures show there were 811,000 admissions in 2006 (accounting for 6 per cent of all admissions) compared with 473,500 in 2002.
Supporting documents and tools (National Indicator 39)
The Department of Health have released supporting documents and tools to help monitor and deliver work to reduce the admissions, as measured by National Indicator 39. Link
Safe Sensible Social –consultation on further action.
The Department of Health released a number of documents including evidence from independent reviews and new hospital admissions data. One of the key documents is 'Safe, Sensible, Social - consultation on further action'. This provides a summary of the current situation and future options.
The consultation seeks views on:
- a possible new mandatory alcohol retailing code to reduce alcohol-related health and social harm
- what action Government should take on alcohol labelling
- what can be done by the NHS and others to make sure advice and help on alcohol are available for those who need it.
A closing date of October 14th has been set for consultation responses. Link