On 29 October, Public Health Scotland (PHS) published a review of the Alcohol Brief Intervention programme in Scotland. This report documents a series of recommendations and actions to consider whether and what form the Scottish Alcohol Brief Intervention programme should continue.
A series of recommendations have been developed by Public Health Scotland based on the discussions and findings of the programme board. Three overarching recommendations are proposed for The Scottish Government to consider:
• reaffirm its commitment to the programme and its reorientation to flexible, evidence-informed conversations about alcohol
• set out the steps by which its vision of embedding conversations about alcohol can be achieved over 10 years
• seek engagement and leadership from the Chief Medical Officer, the Chief Nursing Officer, the Royal College of Midwives and other relevant professional organisations to normalise conversations about alcohol.
Additionally, a series of actions are recommended based around 7 key areas:
Action area 1: Making the conversation about alcohol a routine wellbeing conversation
Action area 2: Describing what conversations should look like in practice
Action area 3: Reducing inequalities in alcohol-related harms
Action area 4: Workforce development, training and health information resource requirements
Action area 5: Reduce stigma by having conversations about alcohol
Action area 6: Ensure conversations about alcohol are embedded as part of a wider comprehensive population-wide prevention strategy to promote health and reduce inequalities
Action area 7: Embedding learning at the heart of governance and accountability mechanisms
SHAAP comments on the ABI report published by PHS.
“This report clearly outlines the benefits of Alcohol Brief Interventions in reducing harm so it makes sense for the Scottish Government to now set out how it will be renewed in a changed health and social care environment.
“We need a flexible system that allows any professional which has an established relationship with a patient to have conversations about how much alcohol they are consuming. That could be a GP but could also be a dentist, a social worker or those working in the justice or housing sectors. The focus should be on people feeling comfortable having conversations about alcohol with professionals they trust, rather than on where these discussions take place.
“We need a people-centred approach which recognises that people may be experiencing cross-cutting issues including those around mental health and that they may be subject to multiple stigmas as a result. This requires time and space so work must be carried out to provide the right infrastructure to allow this.
“We also need to ensure that people carrying out conversations about alcohol have the right not just the skills and expertise to do this but also have accurate information on the health and other harms arising from alcohol consumption. The alcohol industry must be excluded from any involvement in this given their track record of providing misleading information about alcohol-related risks.
“The report also makes it clear that, alongside the ABI programme, we need to see progress on mandatory labelling, marketing restrictions, price controls and reducing the availability of alcohol if we are going to see serious progress in tackling Scotland’s relationship with alcohol – and this is something SHAAP would wholeheartedly endorse.”