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SCOTTISH HEALTHCARE


Dr Brian Keighley, chairman of BMA Scotland, talks to NHE about the alcohol problem in the country, and how minimum pricing will deliver maximum benefits.


S


cotland’s national drinking problem is well established. It’s damaging


people’s health, putting great pressure on NHSScotland and costing the country bil- lions of pounds a year – but now new legis- lation will encourage people to drink more sensibly, health professionals say.


Dr Brian Keighley, the chairman of BMA Scotland, believes that re-introducing the policy of minimum pricing per alcoholic unit is necessary to limit this misuse, by targeting heavy drinkers without adversely affecting the rest of the population.


Dr Keighley said: “It’s something that the BMA have been in favour of for some con- siderable time. When the SNP was in a mi- nority government, whilst they were able to bring in some measures a few months ago, there was a lot of resistance across the Scottish Parliament to the introduction of minimum pricing.


“There were some doubts and concerns. The Labour Party set up their own com- mission as a sort of sop, proposing an al- ternative measure because they said they didn’t think it would do what was said on the tin, despite the Sheffield report on alco- hol, which had been the main basis of evi- dence that the SNP minority government had used.


“They didn’t get the sufficient majority and those elements fell in the Alcohol Bill in 2010. Now that the SNP has got an ab- solute majority in the Scottish Parliament, they are able to reintroduce their propos- als for minimum pricing and it seems that a lot of the opposition has, surprisingly, now diminished.”


Feeling the effects


Dr Keighley suggests that one of the rea- sons why the situation has become so seri- ous is that young people with low dispos- able incomes are buying alcohol cheap and drinking for effect rather than enjoyment. The BMA believes that minimum pricing will make this less attractive.


62 | national health executive Sep/Oct 11


Although certain political parties initially opposed the proposals, now that the SNP have a majority, they have the power to reintroduce minimum pricing on alcohol. Support for the proposals has come from a variety of sources, including Professor Sir Ian Gilmore, former chairman of the Royal College of Physicians.


Keighley said: “Youngsters especially are tanking up on cheap booze from the super- market and going out already well under the influence of alcohol and buying more when they get there. When you look at the unit price of alcohol in supermarkets, espe- cially the strong lagers and cheap white ci- ders, the kind of sweet alcohol that seem to attract young purchasers, they are so cheap that they’re actually almost below the price of fizzy water.


“Statistics show that the amount of alcohol sold per head of population in Scotland is well ahead of that in the other parts of the UK. This has cost us a great deal in extra costs in policing, public disorder, and espe- cially the health service. Alcohol costs the taxpayer about £3.5bn a year.


“We know that alcohol has a very bad influ- ence on domestic violence, on health, fami- lies and relationships, crime and especially road traffic crime. With other measures that the Government are already bringing in about access to alcohol, licensing hours, and all the other things that one can do to try to control the consumption of alcohol, the one conclusion of the Sheffield report is that the single issue that does seem to make a difference is to ensure that alcohol is relatively more expensive then it can be now in the context of supermarkets.


“We’re now seeing people in their twenties having cirrhosis of the liver. We’re seeing young deaths, road accidents, suicides, and accidents in the home. Statistics from hos- pitals show that the number of people ad- mitted on a daily basis because of overuse of alcohol is now out of control.”


Resistance and support


Dr Keighley said: “The SNP government have been trying to push this as a public health measure, and were quite surprised at the level of resistance that was possibly predicated on politics and losing votes. I think they bravely pushed forward this concept, because they felt that the rising tide of the consumption of alcohol and its consequences were so serious for Scotland that the most effective measure, taken with others, is to raise the price.


“The proposals for minimum pricing have support from within the licensed trade, the


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