A healthier future

Our Vice President, Alice Wiseman, has contributed to a new report from the Institute of Alcohol Studies which sets out why alcohol harm is a serious and growing concern in the UK.

Alcohol is impacting people’s health and wellbeing, the NHS, social services, criminal justice, and our economy and these impacts are felt most by people on low incomes or who live in deprived areas. With the last UK alcohol strategy published in 2012, and alcohol deaths at an all-time high, the report calls for meaningful, evidence-based policy action and offers a blueprint for achieving long-term progress.

Key targets for the next decade:

• Halve the prevalence of risky drinking from one in three UK adults to one in six.
• Increase the proportion of people with alcohol dependence accessing specialist alcohol treatment to 50% within five years, and build capacity in the system for 80% of people with alcohol dependence to have access to treatment within ten years.
• Reverse the trend of alcohol-specific deaths, returning to the pre-pandemic rate within five years, and subsequently to 2012 levels within 10 years.

Priority policy recommendations:

1. Introduce minimum unit pricing at 65p per unit in England and increase regularly in line with inflation.
2. Reinstate the alcohol duty escalator at a minimum of 2% above inflation.
3. Introduce restrictions on alcohol marketing, as a minimum equal to those applied for unhealthy food and drink.
4. Empower local authorities to regulate hours of sale and online deliveries of alcohol.
5. Provide increased and sustained investment in alcohol harm prevention and treatment services.
6. Introduce mandatory alcohol product labels that include clear health warnings, ingredients and nutritional information, and the UK low risk drinking guidelines.
7. Lower the drink-driving limit across all UK nations.
8. Introduce guidelines to manage government interactions with the alcohol industry.

The report also highlights the high level of public support for these measures with 45% of the public supporting a 65p minimum unit price (in comparison to just 29% who oppose it), 74% of people wanting strong measures to limit children’s exposure to alcohol advertising and 70% of people in support of ensuring that Government policy is kept free from industry influence.