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MIXED RESULTS
The overall performance of the drug and
alcohol Payment by Results (PbR) pilots has
been ‘mixed’ so far, according to a report
from the Department of Health. However it
remains ‘too early to judge’, says the
document, as changes to services will take
time to embed, and the reports will now be
updated every quarter.
Performance of
payment by results pilot areas: April 2012 to
February 2013 at www.gov.uk
ACT IMPACT
Alcohol sales in Scotland fell by 2.6 per
cent per adult in the year after the
introduction of the 2011 Alcohol etc.
(Scotland) Act – which included a ban on
multi-buy promotions – according to figures
from NHS Scotland. There was a 4 per cent
drop in the amount of wine sold in off-
licences as well as an 8.5 per cent fall in
sales of pre-mixed drinks such as alcopops.
Factors such as changes in income and
price were taken into account, say the
researchers. ‘These findings show that the
Alcohol Act has had the intended impact of
reducing alcohol consumption in Scotland
by placing restrictions on how alcohol is
displayed and promoted,’ said study lead
Mark Robinson.
www.healthscotland.com
STARK WARNING
NHS Lanarkshire has issued a public
health warning following the notification of
two cases of the ‘flesh eating’ necrotising
fasciitis infection in injecting drug users,
both of whom have died. There is also a
third possible case, the agency has said.
‘We would advise drug users not to inject
heroin and warn that muscle-popping, skin-
popping, and injecting when a vein has
been missed are particularly dangerous,’
said NHS Lanarkshire public health
consultant Dr Josephine Pravinkumar.
‘Smoking heroin carries much less risk
than injecting it. If there is any pain or
swelling around an injection site drug users
should seek urgent medical attention.’
SETTING STANDARDS
A new quality standard on preventing
harmful alcohol use will be developed by
NICE, in partnership with Public Health
England, the agency has announced. NICE
quality standards set out high-priority
areas for quality and apply across the
NHS, social care and public health. The
standard would be ‘a valuable tool for local
authorities as they take on their new public
health functions’, said deputy chief
executive Professor Gillian Leng.
Plans to introduce minimum unit pricing (MUP) for
alcohol were absent from last month’s Queen’s
Speech, which set out the government’s legislative
programme for the year ahead. Health secretary
Jeremy Hunt, however, told BBC Radio 4’s
Today
programme that a final decision on minimum pricing –
a key part of the government’s alcohol strategy (
DDN
,
April 2012, page 4) – had still not been made.
Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Alcohol
Misuse, Tracey Crouch MP, also told Alcohol Concern’s
conference that MUP was ‘not dead and buried’ and
public health minister Anna Soubry has recently stated
that it was ‘still official policy’ (
DDN
, May, page 4). ‘The
debate is open and the Scots are leading the charge. We
want to keep that debate going,’ said Ms Soubry at last
month’s RCGP conference.
The Faculty of Public Health said it was ‘profoundly
disappointed’ that the measure – along with standardised
packaging for cigarettes – was not part of the speech.
‘When it comes to policy decisions that affect everyone's
health, it’s actions, not words, that make a difference,’
said president Lindsey Davies. ‘From compulsory seat
belts to the smoking ban, we’ve seen that governments of
all political persuasions need to show leadership and
courage to protect people’s health. Previously unthinkable
interventions have become an everyday part of most
people’s lives because governments acted on the
evidence for making groundbreaking policy decisions.’
Meanwhile, a petition – by the Scotch Whisky Associa-
tion, European Spirits Association and Comité Européen
des Entreprises Vins – for a judicial review to challenge the
legality of the Alcohol Minimum Pricing (Scotland) Act has
been dismissed by the Scottish Court of Session.
Lord Doherty refused the petition on the grounds that
‘the Act was not outside the legislative competence of the
Scottish Parliament’ and that the proposed setting of a
minimum price per unit was ‘within the powers’ of Scottish
ministers. The legal challenge had been one of the reasons
why minimum pricing had not appeared in the Queen’s
Speech, said Jeremy Hunt in his BBC interview.
‘We have always believed minimum unit pricing is the
right thing to do to tackle Scotland’s problematic
relationship with alcohol,’ said health secretary Alex Neil.
‘We now look forward to being able to implement
minimum unit pricing and making that transformational
change in Scotland’s relationship with alcohol.’
However, while the court’s decision to dismiss the
petition was ‘disappointing’, it was ‘just the first step in a
long legal process’, said chief executive of the Wine and
Spirit Trade Association, Miles Beale.
Meanwhile, research by Ofcom has found that children
saw an average of 3.7 alcohol adverts on TV per week in
2010 and 3.2 in 2011, compared with 2.7 in 2007.
Children’s viewing habits have shifted towards channels
with more advertising, says the report, while most viewing
by older children is of adult programming.
‘Children watch adult programmes in large numbers,
but very rarely constitute a sufficient proportion of the
audience to trigger rules excluding alcohol advertising,’ it
says. Ofcom has now asked advertising regulators to
‘review the rules that limit children from being exposed to
alcohol advertising on TV’.
Children’s and young people’s exposure to alcohol
advertising at www.ofcom.org.uk
See page 16 for a profile of Alcohol Concern chief
executive Eric Appleby
4 |
drinkanddrugsnews
| May 2013
www.drinkanddrugsnews.com
Minimum pricing fails to
make Queen’s Speech
News |
Round-up
NEWS IN BRIEF
FACE OF REPRESSION?
Supporters of the
Support.
Don’t Punish
campaign (
DDN
, May, page 20) will don
Richard Nixon face masks as they ‘reclaim’ the UN’s
international day against drug abuse and illicit trafficking
with a day of action on 26 June. The former president was
the first high-profile politician to talk of the ‘war on drugs’.
Details at supportdontpunish.org