For far too long, the harm caused by alcohol has been soaring, yet efforts to address it have been hampered by a reluctance to take action at a national level. Alcohol can sometimes feel like someone else’s problem, not one that affects us directly.
This mind-set – along with the notion the alcohol industry should be part of the solution when it comes to reducing alcohol harms – has fostered a culture of complacency and voluntary regulation. The reality, however, paints a stark picture.
During the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond, we’ve seen rising and record levels of alcohol specific deaths, with a toll of almost one million alcohol related hospital admissions every year. The impact is felt not only by individuals but also by families and entire communities.
Given the scale of the problem, the need for action is more urgent than ever. And the public is ready for this with 83% supporting limiting young people’s exposure to alcohol advertising and nearly half (48%) supporting a Minimum Unit Price.
This is why in the North East, Balance has launched “Reducing Alcohol Harm”, a blueprint calling for urgent national action to tackle the significant impact of alcohol on health, social care, crime and disorder, workplaces, and the economy and outlining evidence-based steps across price, promotion and availability.
This is a unified call to action from leaders from across our region where existing health inequalities have made matters worse. It is supported by the Alcohol Health Alliance, the Institute of Alcohol Studies and also prominent leaders from across the North East—including Directors of Public Health, local authorities, Police and Crime Commissioners, the NHS Integrated Care Board for the North East and North Cumbria, and the Mayor of the North East Combined Authority.
A staggering 82% of North East adults now consider alcohol to be a problem both regionally and nationally, with huge numbers of people in the region associating alcohol with a raft of social ills, such as anti-social behaviour, sexual violence and disorder in the night time economy. We also highlight the traumas felt by individuals who have directly experienced the harm alcohol can cause.
People like Karen Slater who grew up as a victim of child abuse and domestic violence, and who sought solace in alcohol, drugs and self-harm. A former dependent drinker, Karen describes how every day in recovery can be a struggle surrounded by relentless alcohol promotion, from the bus stop to the TV to the supermarket.
And Joanne Good – a mum who tragically lost her teenage daughter to alcohol and has campaigned ever since for action to tackle cheap, strong alcohol to protect younger and vulnerable people. This as we know has been largely prohibited in Scotland through Minimum Unit Price – soon to be uprated to 65p a unit. Joanne’s passion to prevent further deaths stands in stark contrast to the laxity in alcohol pricing policies seen in England where alcohol duty freezes over the past decade have made it more affordable to drink regularly and harmfully.
Shockingly, alcohol is a causal factor in almost 980,000 hospital admissions and secondary diagnoses in England each year. These include a range of serious conditions, such as cardiovascular disease, mental and behavioural disorders, cancers, and liver disease.
This is far from being just about health. Alcohol is a major contributor to social harm, factoring into hundreds of thousands of alcohol-related violent incidents each year in England and Wales. These incidents rip through communities, leaving lasting trauma and take up far too much time and resource of our police, A&E and paramedic crews.
The financial cost of alcohol is immense. In the North East alone, alcohol-related harm incurs an annual cost of approximately £1.5 billion. These expenses include the strain on health services, crime and public disorder, social care demands, and lost economic productivity. Across England, the total cost is over £27.4 billion.
Alcohol companies lobby against any sort of regulation and yet are dependent on risky drinking for the scale of profits – IAS research has found 77% of all alcohol consumption is by people drinking at hazardous or harmful levels. The alcohol industry has no financial motive whatsoever for the UK population to reduce drinking – and its efforts to influence government around the development of alcohol policy represent a clear conflict of interest.
It’s no wonder that the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) recently concluded that the UK’s worsening health – largely driven by issues like alcohol harm – is having far-reaching economic effects. This decline in public health with people spending more of their lives with ill health is reducing the available workforce, worsening productivity, holding back wages, damaging public finances, and exacerbating regional inequalities. The costs are not just financial; they are societal, deepening the divide between regions and undermining economic progress.
Equally, the Darzi investigation into the NHS points to the impact of the alcohol duty escalator in 2007 – figures show that when clear action was taken on the harm caused by alcohol from 2007 this was the only period in history that deaths attributed to alcohol actually stabilised.
We can no longer pretend that alcohol-related problems are confined to a small minority of “irresponsible drinkers.” This belief, often perpetuated by the alcohol industry, allows society to downplay the wider-reaching risks. The truth is, alcohol consumption at various levels is a significant public health issue which also exacerbates other issues like smoking and obesity.
Nor can we hide behind any notion of a “safe” level of drinking. Alcohol is now firmly established as a Group 1 carcinogen, meaning it is a direct cause of seven types of cancer, including breast, liver, and bowel cancer. This is not a risk faced only by heavy drinkers; even moderate consumption increases the likelihood of developing these life-threatening conditions. Our “Alcohol is Toxic” campaign has been acclaimed nationally and proved that there is massive demand for more information about the risks.
In our region alone, over half of adults are drinking at levels of increasing and higher risk, equating to around 1m adults, yet most believe they are “drinking responsibly”. This significantly increases the risk of developing a range of health conditions. The misconception that alcohol is only harmful to “someone else” prevents many from acknowledging their own vulnerability and there is a strong demand for more information. By dismissing the issue as affecting only a small subset of the population, we not only ignore the science but also place millions of lives at unnecessary risk.
There are some signs of hope. Despite some of the awful statistics, we have found 6/10 people in the North East are taking steps to try to cut down on their drinking, while 15% now abstain from alcohol entirely — the highest rate of non-drinkers we have seen in the region. It is vital people who want healthier lives are protected more from constant reminders and incentives to drink.
In regions like the North East, health inequalities are deeply entrenched, but so many deaths and so much ill health are still preventable. We’ve now made this plea – but regions and local areas like ours where inequalities fuel illness and social harm would benefit equally from national action. We urgently need an evidence-based alcohol strategy that protects vulnerable people, provides ongoing support for treatment, and includes action to reduce the price, promotion and availability of alcohol.
So we echo the calls growing by the day nationally: better health must beat the forefront of the Government’s efforts to build a healthier, safer and more economically productive country. We can no longer bury our heads in the sand and put alcohol at the back of the queue.
Recommendations from “Reducing Alcohol Harm – a Blueprint for Action”
- Commit to the introduction of an evidence-based national alcohol strategy for England, free from alcohol industry influence.
- Take steps to raise awareness of alcohol harms, via the delivery of public education campaigns such as Balance’s ‘Alcohol is Toxic’ campaign, the introduction of mandatory health warnings and nutritional / unit / calorie information on alcohol labels.
- Introduce pricing policies which improve public health and protect the public purse, including a minimum unit price (MUP) for alcohol in England and a fairer alcohol duty system which keeps pace with inflation.
- Introduce restrictions on alcohol marketing to protect children and vulnerable people.
- Introduce a ‘public health objective’ in England and Wales and consideration of a wider overhaul of the Licensing Act.
- Invest in prevention and early intervention and improving access to specialist support for at-risk drinkers.
- Ensure that the alcohol industry is prohibited from involvement in the development of public policy around alcohol.
All IAS Blogposts are published with the permission of the author. The views expressed are solely the author’s own and do not necessarily represent the views of the Institute of Alcohol Studies.