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A FULL ADMISSION
The Alcohol Health Alliance (AHA) has
called on the government to make sure
hospitals record when alcohol is an
‘important contributing factor’ to an
admission as part of its response to a
Department of Health consultation. The
AHA is calling for the government to
continue with the system of monitoring all
alcohol-related conditions in official figures,
as it concerned that any change would
mask the true extent of alcohol-related
health issues. ‘Alcohol-related health
harms aren’t just about the obvious things
you would associate with alcohol,’ said
AHA chair Sir Ian Gilmore. ‘In 2010-11, 35
per cent of all alcohol-related hospital
admissions were the result of high blood
pressure attributable to drinking. These
outnumber the admissions for alcoholic
liver disease and alcohol-related accidents,
violence and injuries combined.’
COMMUNITY RECOVERY
The second National Recovery in the
Community Conference on 13-14
September will look at how recovery can
become part of a community health strategy.
Speakers at the Sheffield event include Carl
Cundall of the Alcohol Recovery Community,
Paul Hayes and Mark Gilman of the NTA,
David Best of Monash University and
director of Philadelphia’s Office of Addiction
Services, Roland Lamb.
Full details at
www.sheffieldalcoholsupportservice.org.uk/
conference. See October’s DDN for a profile
of Roland Lamb.
NINE DAYS, NINTH MONTH
The FASD (Foetal Alcohol Spectrum
Disorders) Trust is urging people to abstain
from alcohol for the first nine days of this
month and donate the money they would
have spent to the trust instead, to help raise
awareness of the condition. ‘Mums-to-be get
mixed messages in pregnancy,’ said FSAD’s
Julia Brown. ‘The most dangerous time is
the first and last three months of pregnancy.
The first three is when the foetus is forming
physically; the last three is when the brain
can suffer significant damage. The message
should be that there is no safe time and no
safe limit for drinking if you get pregnant.’ In
some areas of the UK, up to 90 per cent of
children released for adoption suffer from
FASD, with only an estimated 18-25 per cent
of people affected able to live independently
as adults.
Email info@fasdtrust.co.uk for
more information.
September 2012 |
drinkanddrugsnews
| 5
www.drinkanddrugsnews.com
News |
Round-up
Homelessness report slammed
Homelessness charities have criticised the government’s
new report into preventing homelessness, in the light of
ongoing welfare reforms.
While
Making every contact count
sets out a ‘cross-
governmental approach to ensuring that anyone at risk of
homelessness gets help at the earliest possible stage’ and
details ‘clear commitments from government to stop the
slide towards homelessness in its tracks’, housing charities
have warned that cuts to services and benefit reforms risk
dramatically worsening homelessness rates.
The report pledges earlier support for people with drug,
alcohol and mental health issues, young people and prisoners,
as well as improved joint working between the health, crim-
inal justice, local government and voluntary sectors. Housing
minister Grant Shapps also announced an extra £3.5m
funding for the ‘No second night out’ initiative which aims to
stop anyone spending more than one night on the streets.
‘No single voluntary service, government agency, council
or government department can prevent homelessness
alone – but working together we can make a big impact,’
said Mr Shapps. ‘Every single contact these vulnerable
people have with our public services – from council drop-
ins to healthcare visits – should be made to count, turning
prevention into the cure for anyone facing the real and
frightening prospect of sleeping on the streets.’
The umbrella body for homeless charities, Homeless
Link, however, said that while the report’s vision that
‘homelessness is everyone’s business’ was to be welcomed,
the potential for welfare reform to ‘further fuel homeless
numbers and funding cuts to the very services that help
homeless people’ meant that the report lacked detail in
how its aims could be achieved in practice.
Crisis called the report a ‘missed opportunity’ that failed
to address the key issues of lack of support for single
homeless people, the impact of cuts and the ‘desperate
shortage’ of housing, while the Local Government Association
(LGA) said the document ‘missed the bigger picture’.
‘Councils are working closely with partners to place
people into secure, appropriate accommodation and
provide the most comprehensive support they can, whether
that be equipping them with the skills to find work or
ensuring their health and wellbeing,’ said chair of the LGA’s
environment board Mike Jones. ‘However, this is only
getting tougher as a result of job losses, rent increases and
welfare cuts. Councils, who are contending with significant
cuts to their budgets, cannot do this alone and the future
of this type of support will be dependent on the whole
public sector sharing resources and working together.’
Report at www.communities.gov.uk
See news focus, page 6
NEWS IN
BRIEF
Heavy cannabis
use can cause
lasting cognitive
problems in young
Fatal anthrax case in
England confirmed
The Health Protection Agency (HPA) has confirmed that an
injecting drug user with an anthrax infection has died in hospital
in Blackpool. The case is the eighth to be identified since June,
with one in Scotland (
DDN
, August, page 4), three in Germany,
two in Denmark and one in France.
The HPA says it remains ‘unclear’ whether the UK cases are
linked to those on mainland Europe but in all instances the source
is presumed to be contaminated heroin. The cases are the first
among injecting drug users since the Scottish outbreak of 2009-10,
which was the largest UK ‘common source’ anthrax outbreak in
humans for half a century (
DDN
, January, page 6). Before that, only
one case of a drug user infected with anthrax had ever been
reported, in Norway in 2000.
A rapid risk assessment by the European Monitoring Centre for
Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA) and European Centre for
Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) concluded that heroin users
in Europe remain at risk of anthrax exposure, and that ‘it is
possible’ that the batch of contaminated heroin has the same
source as that of the 2009 Scottish outbreak.
‘It’s likely that further cases in people who inject drugs (PWID)
will be identified as part of the ongoing outbreak in EU countries,’
said HPA expert in zoonotic infections, Dr Dilys Morgan. ‘The
Department of Health has alerted the NHS of the possibility of
PWID presenting to emergency departments and walk-in clinics,
with symptoms suggestive of anthrax. Anthrax can be cured with
antibiotics, if treatment is started early. It is therefore important for
medical professionals to know the signs and symptoms to look for,
so that there are no delays in providing the necessary treatment.’
Risk assessment at www.ecdc.europa.eu
Persistent cannabis use is associated with
‘neuropsychological decline’ among those whose
use began in adolescence, says a new study.
The findings are ‘suggestive of a neurotoxic
effect of cannabis on the adolescent brain’ and
highlight the importance of ‘prevention and policy
efforts targeting adolescents’, concludes
Persistent
cannabis users show neuropsychological decline from
childhood to midlife
.
Researchers followed more than 1,000 people
in Dunedin, New Zealand, from birth until the age
of 38, with participants undergoing memory,
intelligence, problem-solving and other neuro -
psychological testing at age 13, before cannabis
use had begun, and again at 38, ‘after a pattern of
persistent cannabis use had developed’.
The IQ of those who had been regular cannabis
users in their youth was found to have dropped by
an average of eight points, a finding not replicated
in those whose use began after the age of 18. The
study also found that stopping use of the drug ‘did
not fully restore neuropsychological functioning
among adolescent-onset cannabis users’.
Study published in the Proceedings of the
National Academy of Sciences of the United States
of America www.pnas.org