Region's mission to curb drinking

10:10am Wednesday 13th August 2008

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By Barry Nelson »

BINGE drinking fears have prompted heath chiefs to give the go-ahead for the UK’s first alcohol control agency to be based in the North-East.

The new Office for the Safe Consumption of Alcohol (Osca) has been handed the job of making binge drinking socially unacceptable.

Officials hope they can turn drunken pub crawls into as big a taboo as drink-driving.

The go-ahead means that publicly-funded advertising campaigns to make drunkeness “un-cool” could be appearing on TV screens and billboards in the near future.

Police chiefs say the region is home to some of the most irresponsible, reckless binge drinking in the country.

The North-East has the highest number of people needing emergency treatment as a result of drinking.

The number of people in the region who have died from chronic liver disease has almost doubled in the past ten years from 211, in 1996, to 387 by 2006.

The scheme was given the go-ahead in the wake of the successful campaign group set up to support a workplace smoking ban.

Fresh Smoke Free North- East, which was the only organisation of its kind in England, was hailed as a success and a possible model for similar public health campaigns to curb excessive drinking.

Fresh commissioned a hard-hitting campaign of TV and billboard advertising paid for by North-East primary care trusts and local authorities.

News of moves to set up an office for alcohol control would probably meet with the approval of Professor David Hunter, professor of health policy at Durham University.

In a new book, Prof Hunter argues that the UK Government has failed to transform the NHS into a “health system” rather than a “sickness” system.

He warns that unless the Government takes tougher measures to reduce lifestylerelated illness such as diabetes, obesity and some forms of cancer, the NHS will become unaffordable.

In March, one of the region’s most senior police officers, Michael Craik, Chief Constable of Northumbria, called for greater restrictions on the availability of alcohol, including price rises and a ban on advertising alcoholic drinks.

Mr Craik told a regional event aimed at tackling alcohol misuse in the North-East: “If it was invented tomorrow, it would be a class A controlled drug.”

The idea of setting up a dedicated organisation to help curb excessive consumption of alcohol in the region surfaced in May.

The proposal was part of Better Health, Fairer Health, a blueprint that aims to make the North-East the healthiest place to live in Britain within 25 years.

Last night, The Northern Echo confirmed that the agency – currently named Osca – is being established after the region’s primary care trusts agreed to set aside £100,000 to get it started.

The Department of Health has also agreed to fund a regional alcohol advisor to work with the North-East’s NHS and Osca.

A spokesman for Public Health North-East said that setting up Osca was part of the broader 25-year strategy to improve public health in the region.

He said: “Specific actions include setting up a regional office for alcohol based on the highly-successful Fresh Smoke Free North-East model. It will co-ordinate social marketing, lobbying and regional action to tackle high rates of consumption as well as alcohol-related injury and illness.

“Funding has been agreed with the region’s primary care trusts and it is hoped the office will be up and running by the end of the year.”

A spokesman for the Portman Group, which represents the major brewers and distillers, said: “Any initiative that is going to tackle alcohol abuse will be welcome, but it is important to distinguish between alcohol consumption and alcohol misuse.

“The vast majority of the public drink responsibly but a minority are out of control.”

The spokesman said the proportion of the population drinking to harmful levels had fallen in recent years.

He added: “You need to tackle misuse by a minority rather than the majority of sensible drinkers.”

He said a scattergun approach such as increasing taxation and banning discounts “impacted on everyone”. He added there should be more emphasis on enforcing existing laws against under-age drinking.

Ian Loe, spokesman for the Campaign for Real Ale, said drinking relatively weak beer in a pub where adults could keep an eye on younger people was better than allowing teenagers to buy cheap lager from off-licences and stores.

He said: “We need to move to a culture where alcohol is treated with respect rather than this sledgehammer approach of trying to hammer all alcohol drinks.”

He said “more carrot and less stick” would help.

Osca should avoid “making everybody feel guilty if they have more than two pints a day”, he added.