Launch of alcohol treatment service

Lincolnshire Primary Care Trust in partnership with Lincolnshire County Council is launching its new alcohol treatment service to the public as part of a Lincolnshire Alcohol Awareness Week.

The Alcohol Awareness Week will see a county tour of seven of the largest towns, where a stand in the town centre will encourage people to gain information about alcohol, its effects and the new treatment service through leaflets and interactive activities.

As well as this, the service will be launching its own dedicated website: www.lincs2alcohol.co.uk. The website will be aimed at both professionals and those who are seeking help themselves or wish to seek help for a family member. The site will include the AUDIT' tool which measures an individual's level of alcohol use, advises whether this could be problematic and suggests what they should do and where to go for help, as well as pages covering alcohol information, quizzes, what alcohol treatment is, local and national helplines and much more.

The same week will also see the launch of a poster campaign advertising the service and the website across the county in community services such as General Practitioner's (GP) surgeries. The same posters will be used on ad shells in twelve different supermarkets across the county targeting home drinkers' who feel that they are drinking above recommended levels but do not have an alcohol problem.

The service has commissioned hospital liaison workers to be based at Lincoln, Boston and Grantham hospitals who will work with patients who have been admitted to hospital with problems linked to alcohol use. These liaison workers will also be able to refer potential service users for further assessment, treatment and support when they leave hospital.

In addition to this, there will be an entirely new open access to alcohol treatment throughout the county via the alcohol and drug resource sites in Lincoln, Boston and Grantham, as well as through satellite sites and criminal justice routes, a restructured Alcohol Community Treatment Service which will have a massive increase in nursing staff and a Structured Psychosocial Intervention Service. These services will be run by Addaction and Lincolnshire Partnership Foundation Trust.

Money will also be available for commissioning GPs, community pharmacists and pharmacy technicians to provide screenings and interventions on alcohol misuse for their local communities.

Councillor Christine Talbot, Executive Councillor for Secondary Education and Healthier Communities said:

"With 7.1 million adults in the UK now drinking at harmful levels, the amount of clinical abuse through alcohol consumption far exceeds that through drug abuse."

"Alcohol abuse not only affects your own health, but the health of your family, as well as impacting massively on your social life, your work and your relationships."

"The introduction of this crucial new service will not only provide help and support for those with alcohol abuse issues and their families, but also for members of their local community."

Tony McGinty, Assistant Director of Public Health and Partnerships commented:

"We have been working very hard with providers of specialist services to get this exciting new service up and running. This will provide an excellent range of services to local people and help to raise awareness of the often unnoticed creep in the amount of alcohol we are consuming and the affect this may be having on our health."

"Alcohol causes and contributes to a wide range of illnesses and a great deal of accidental injury anything we can do to help people at all stages of alcohol consumption to limit their intake to sensible levels is good news for the health of local people."

Article published on 12/08/2008