Local authorities must be given the certainty and stability over funding they need to maintain and improve alcohol treatment programmes, MPs say.
The chair of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC), Dame Meg Hillier, has accused the Government of failing to take the ‘appalling’ harms caused by alcohol seriously.
She said the Government has had no alcohol strategy since 2012 and ‘abandoned its latest effort in 2020’.
Latest figures show alcohol-related deaths have risen 89% over the last two decades and especially sharply since the start of the pandemic, costing an estimated £25bn to the NHS and wider society.
An estimated 10 million people in England regularly exceed the chief medical officers’ low-risk drinking guidelines, including 1.7 million who drink at higher risk and around 600,000 who are dependent on alcohol.
But in its report the public accounts committee says a ‘staggering’ 82% of those 600,000 dependent drinkers in England are not in treatment 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.
Dame Hillier said: ‘What more does DHSC need to see to act decisively on this most harmful intoxicant?
‘In doing so it must give local authorities the certainty and stability over funding to maintain and improve the treatment programmes that are proven to work, and stop dithering over the evidence on industry reforms.’
Commenting on the PAC report, Cllr David Fothergill, chairman of the Local Government Association’s (LGA) Community Wellbeing Board said: ‘This stark evidence shows a concerning increase in harmful alcohol dependency across the country since the pandemic, placing additional pressure on vital local council-commissioned alcohol treatment services.
‘It is good that this report acknowledges that every £1 spent on alcohol treatment services provides a return of £3, with local addiction support services saving our overstretched health and social care system a staggering £2bn every year.
‘However, councils have seen £1bn worth of cuts to their local public health grant over the last eight years, which goes to fund alcohol treatment services.
‘To meet these increased pressures and transform the health chances of people in our local communities, councils need a long term increase in their public health grant.’
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