Choosing Health in The South East
Alcohol consumption and its consequences for health and social wellbeing is one of them. Men and Women in the region have relatively high rates of drinking compared to those in many other regions, and the impact of alcohol is widespread; on mortality and ill health, on crime and productivity, on the future health of today’s children and young people.
- There are 184,000 dependant drinkers in the South East Region.
- There were over 3,500 alcohol-attributable deaths in the South East Region in 2004.
- Alcohol is implicated in almost 17,500 hospital admissions per year in the South East, which represents a lower rate than the national average.
- Over 4,000 people in the South East claim incapacity benefit or sever disability allowance due to alcoholism – significantly more than the national average.
- The South East has a lower rate of alcohol related harm than the country as a whole but several local authorities significantly exceed the national average – most notably Portsmouth, Southampton, Reading, Slough and Hastings.
- A model pioneered in Cardiff has sown how the NHS can help tackle community violence by sharing A+E injury data with local CDRP’s. 33 A+E departments are now adopting this model.
- The provision of treatment for alcohol dependency is insufficient to meet need in the South East, and currently only reaches only 1 in 20 dependant drinkers.
Our Role
We are currently undertaking specific work to address alcohol misuse within the South East.
This includes:
- Producing a GOSE statement of priorities on Alcohol
- Organising a regional Alcohol event
- Ensuring that a cross-cutting alcohol strategy and plan that is fit for purpose is produced in each upper tier/unitary authority
- To maintain the networking forum of alcohol practitioners in the region
- To set up an internal committee to scrutinise current and future Local Authority alcohol strategies/action plans ensuring they are fit for purpose
- To ensure cross-cutting targets are embedded in the Local Area Agreements as appropriate
