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Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Understanding Alcohol Misuse in Scotland - Harmful Drinking Final Report
30 April 2008

In 2002, the Scottish Executive published its Plan for Action on Alcohol Problems, which outlined a commitment to consider the developmentof standards for the treatment and management of people with alcohol problems.1 NHS QIS contributed to this plan by establishing a short-life Alcohol Advisory Group to consider how best to support the implementation of key policies and the improvement of alcohol services. The group met between May 2004 and January 2005 and comprised membership from a range of disciplines, including policy makers, service planners, and service providers from voluntary and statutory organisations.

As part of the Alcohol Advisory Group’s work, a discussion forum involving key alcohol service providers was held in December 2004. The event provided us with a better understanding of where to focus future work. One area where there was little information was on alcohol-related attendances at Scottish emergency departments. To address this, in September 2005, NHS QIS established the Scottish Emergency Department Alcohol Audit (SEDAA) steering group to provide expert advice and formulate an appropriate contribution to the growing evidence base on alcohol problems in Scotland.

The aim of the SEDAA steering group was two-fold: to describe the burden of disease and provide descriptive epidemiology on alcohol-related presentations to emergency departments in Scotland, To facilitate this, the group commissioned the Scottish Trauma Audit Group (STAG) to undertake a two-part programme of work.

Part one focused on gathering the evidence necessary to inform and shape the SEDAA steering group’s work, including:

  • a survey of emergency department staff attitudes towards the management of patients with alcohol-related problems
  • a survey of staff views on the use of alcohol screening tools, and the compilation of a directory of locally-available alcohol services.

Part two comprised a programme of work identified by members of the steering group as requiring particular attention. A series of five timelimited audits was devised and focused on:

  • the size of the overall problem
  • alcohol-related assaults
  • alcohol-related self-harm
  • the use of intravenous B vitamins, and
  • alcohol and young people.

This report summarises the findings of this work which was carried out in 15– 20 mainland emergency departments between October 2005 and June 2007. Examples of good practice are highlighted and recommendations for further work and service improvements are made.


Read Full Report (PDF)
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