The Scottish Government is being urged to boost its investment in alcohol treatment ahead of tomorrow’s budget.
It should also introduce a ‘public health supplement’ on alcohol retailers, with the money used to fund preventative interventions to help people ‘before they reach crisis point’, says a briefing paper from Alcohol Focus Scotland (AFS). Retailers should be paying towards the health and social costs of alcohol-related harm based on the ‘polluter pays’ principle, it says.
The document also calls for a national needs assessment to be carried out to better understand the demand for, and availability of, services.
Almost 1,300 alcohol-specific deaths were registered in Scotland last year, the highest number since 2008. A report last month from Audit Scotland, however, said that the government had been ‘slow to progress’ its key national alcohol and drug strategies and found that service delivery was ‘complex’, with a wide range of partners and little overall accountability. ‘Most alcohol and drug funding goes to NHS specialist services to treat people at crisis point – this means there is limited money to put into preventing people getting so ill in the first place,’ it said.
Alcohol-specific deaths in Scotland are up by 25 per cent since before the pandemic, the briefing paper points out, likely caused by both increased rates of harmful drinking and reduced access to services. ‘If these changes in consumption persist into the long term, it is estimated that this will lead to around 7,500 more deaths and 70,000 more hospitalisations by 2040, costing £82.2m in hospital costs alone,’ it states.
Although Scottish drug death rates have long been the worst in Europe, the Scottish Government had established its drug deaths task force, appointed a dedicated drugs minister and announced a ‘national mission’ supported by £250m in funding. ‘There have been no equivalent developments specifically focusing on reducing alcohol harm,’ the paper points out. While more than 90 per cent of Scottish alcohol and drug partnerships had drug death review groups, just 7 per cent had carried out alcohol death audits in 2022-23 – ‘despite the fact that more people die from alcohol harm than drug harm’.
Prevention activities could include funding the early identification of alcohol-related liver disease, the paper continues – ‘a silent killer that is largely asymptomatic in its early stages’, with three quarters of cirrhosis patients diagnosed in A&E. This could include targeted fibrosis assessments in primary care and community settings, including non-invasive liver scans.
‘Early detection of alcohol-related liver disease not only allows an opportunity to prevent hospital admissions and avoidable deaths, but it also provides motivation for people to address their alcohol problems,’ said consultant liver specialist at Glasgow Royal Infirmary, Professor Ewan Forrest. ‘Our community-based project using a specialised liver scan in the North-East of Glasgow identifies people with significant liver disease before they develop symptoms. This approach could significantly reduce the burden of alcohol-related illness and death.’
Meanwhile an Ipsos survey of more than 2,100 people commissioned by the Forward Trust-led Taking Action on Addiction campaign found that more than 10 per cent had ‘experienced addiction to alcohol, drugs, medication, or gambling at some point in their lives’. Almost half had either experienced – or knew someone who’d had – a dependency, equating to around 23m people UK-wide. Alcohol was the most prevalent dependency, at just under half of those with personal experience.
‘This is not a pandemic blip, as some hoped,’ the campaign states. ‘Thirty-one per cent of people with personal experience of addiction say their consumption of alcoholic drinks is higher than before March 2020.’ Among those living with addiction, ‘both directly and indirectly’, more than half said their physical health had suffered, with other negative impacts including ‘emotional or psychological distress (53 per cent), financial issues (46 per cent), and relationship problems (41 per cent)’.
Alcohol Focus Scotland briefing: Scottish budget 2025-26 available here
Taking Action on Addiction campaign available here