This is a House of Commons Committee report, with recommendations to government. The Government has two months to respond.
This is the report summary, read the full report.
Alcohol harm is a huge problem, affecting not only millions of people but also bringing significant costs for society. For those in deepest need alcohol treatment services offer real hope. However, despite the alarming increase in alcohol-related deaths over the past twenty years and sharp rises since 2019, the number of people receiving treatment for alcohol dependency has generally been falling. A staggering 82% of the 600,000 dependent drinkers in England are not in treatment. This is despite success rates of around 60% and evidence that, on average, every £1 spent on treatment immediately delivers £3 of benefit and significantly more in the longer term.
Given the £21 billion cost of alcohol harm for the NHS and wider society from alcohol harm, it is surprising and disappointing that the Department is not taking a more proportionate and serious approach to addressing the harms. The Department’s understanding of the prevalence of alcohol dependency and the ten-year-old estimate of the cost of alcohol harm are out of date meaning it is not even in a position to identify an appropriate response. Despite the widespread harm, there has been no alcohol-focused strategy since 2012 and the latest plans to publish one were abandoned in 2020. While government’s 10-year drugs strategy does support treatment services for people with alcohol dependency, the Department, along with local authorities, could do more to prevent them from ever needing that treatment. Though some experts in the field told us that preventative measures around price, availability, and marketing, are very effective, the Department points out that the evidence for the right approach for some areas is highly contested. The Department needs to secure a consensus to break this impasse and act on the best available evidence.
We welcome recent ring-fenced funding for drug and alcohol recovery services and are encouraged that numbers of people in treatment for problems with alcohol have more recently started to increase. However, the Department should address the key issues of funding uncertainty for local authorities, barriers to accessing treatment, local variations in outcomes, and severe and worsening workforce shortages.