SCOTTISH HEALTHCARE
churches, the Association of Chief Police Officers in Scotland, the Royal College of Physicians. Ian Gilmore has made some very public announcements on the damage that alcohol is doing to our society and to the population’s health.
“The BMA have been consistent in our sup- port for this for as long as I’ve been chair- man and before. This is possibly not popu- lar with elements of the population but it is a responsible piece of social legislation that we support.”
Raising the price
Supermarkets especially are stocking alco- hol in large quantities and selling it cheap. The SNP is proposing a minimum price per unit of alcohol at 45p, which will target problem drinkers rather than the general population.
Dr Keighley explained: “There was a lot of spurious nonsense in one of the Scottish daily papers saying it was going to put up the cost of a pint of beer, which is nonsense, because by and large, every drink that’s in
ALCOHOL FACTS In one day in Scotland: • Alcohol costs the country £97m in terms of health, violence and crime
• Alcohol will kill 5 people • 98 people will be admitted to hospital on alcohol related conditions
• 23 people will commit a drink driving offence • 450 victims of violent crime will perceive their assailant to be under the influence of alcohol
the public house or a licensed premise is well over the minimum price. Minimum pricing will actually help licensed trade because the price differential will not be so much.
“The Labour Party’s worries were that this would affect people of very low income, especially the elderly and retired who en- joy a drink at night. But the ones that will be affected most will be cheap lager, often with a very strong percentage of alcohol, al- copops and the strong ciders. It will affect some of the very low-priced, unbranded supermarket gins, vodkas and whiskey. A bottle of gin will go from £6.70 to £11.20 and roughly the same for whisky.
“The Sheffield study showed that by and large it is going to affect those people who are drinking to excess, because they’re buy- ing it in bulk at cheap prices. For some- one who is taking a sensible modicum of alcohol of an evening, only drinking in a responsible way, a 45p unit is not going to impinge on pensions or disposable income to a great extent.”
Cultural change
Dr Keighley believes that more work needs to be done to shift the cultural attitude on drinking in Scotland, and continued sup- port from the healthcare sector will help drive this change.
Below: The Scottish Parliament debating chamber
He said: “The general consensus in Scot- land is that we do have a significant prob- lem with our love affair with alcohol. We think this is going to be effective to change affordability and access, but that does not mean that we don’t need to resort to educa- tion. Schools, families and institutions all have responsibilities to encourage sensible drinking. It will maybe take a generation to change a culture.
“The BMA is there very often to pick up the pieces when things go wrong in terms of chronic diseases and treating people with the effects of alcohol. We also have a public health function and we think that it is a responsible thing for a professional organisation to support this move from the government.
“We are supported by all the Royal Colleges, and other medical and nursing professional organisations are in agreement with this.
“Our role is one of advocacy at the moment, because doctors are at the front end of see- ing the effects of alcohol. I’ve seen the ef- fects of violence driving suicides, family disharmony, divorce, child abuse, and do- mestic violence. Very often alcohol is not the prime cause, but a lubricant for these things to happen because people become uninhibited.
“Scotland has always traditionally drunk more per capita than other parts of the UK; it’s now got to the stage where it has become an epidemic, and we think that the right thing to do is to support anything from the Government that will reduce this tide of harmful effects.”
Dr Brian Keighley
FOR MORE INFORMATION Visit
www.bma.eu/sc
national health executive Sep/Oct 11 | 63
© Alan Stanton
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