This was followed, in July 2007, by Safe Sensible Social: The next steps in the National Alcohol Strategy which reviewed the progress made since 2004 and outlined further national and local action to reduce alcohol-related ill health and crime. This has more recently been followed by the National Alcohol Strategy Implementation Toolkit.
The National Alcohol Harm Reduction Strategy
The cost of alcohol misuse nationally is estimated to be £15 billion. The main costs are associated with crime and public disorder, health, family and social networks and the workplace. These include:
· 1.2 million violent incidents (around half of all violent crimes), it is estimated that 78% of assaults are committed and 88% of criminal damage occurs whilst the offender is under the influence of alcohol.
· 360,000 incidents of domestic violence (around a third of all such incidents).
· Up to 150,000 hospital admissions a year are alcohol-related and alcohol abuse is estimated to cost the NHS £1.7billion a year.
· Between 780,000 and 1.3million children are affected by parental alcohol problems and between 30% and 50% of child protection cases involve alcohol.
· Drinkers under 16 are consuming twice as much alcohol as 10 years ago, 20% of suspensions are due to pupils drinking alcohol at school and 16% of excluded pupils drink alcohol every day compared with 3% of non-excluded pupils.
· There are 97,000 cases of drink-driving a year, and more than 18,000 people were killed or injured in drink drive accidents in 2000.
· Up to 17 million working days are lost each year by alcohol-related absence, costing up to £6.4billion a year and 46% of UK company personnel managers face alcohol problems in their work-force.
For more information, please see the Harm Reduction Strategy on the Cabinet Office website.
Safe Sensible Social: The next steps in the National Alcohol Strategy
This document reviews progress since the publication of the Alcohol Harm Reduction Strategy for England (2004) and outlines further national and local action to achieve long-term reductions in alcohol-related ill health and crime.
If focuses on three key groups:
· Young People under 18 who drink alcohol, many of whom we now know are drinking more than their counterparts did a decade ago
· 18 – 24 Year old binge drinkers, a minority of who are responsible for the majority of alcohol related crime and disorder in the Night –time economy
· Harmful drinkers, many of whom don’t realise that their drinking patterns damage their physical and mental heath and may be causing substantial harm to others.
For more information, please see the Safe Sensible Social publication on the Department of Health website
National Alcohol Strategy Implementation Toolkit
This toolkit is a resource to help local teams develop strategies to address alcohol-related crime, ill health and other harm in line with Safe, Sensible, Social. The next steps in the National Alcohol Strategy. It has been written specifically to help alcohol leads and others within local authorities, primary care trust (PCTs), children's services and delivery partnerships such as Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnerships (CDRPs) and Drug and Alcohol Action Teams (DAATs) - the people most likely to be responsible for developing and delivering alcohol strategies locally. It will also be useful to individual agencies tackling alcohol misuse.
