Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment she has made of the implications for her policies of the finding on p.134 of the Chief Medical Officer’s annual report, published on 10 November 2023, that deaths due to alcohol-related liver disease increased 87% between 2001 and 2021.

The Department has an existing agenda to tackle alcohol harms, including alcohol-related liver disease (ARLD). Continued alcohol consumption is the main risk for dying of ARLD. However, damage to a person’s liver can be effectively halted if it is identified early and there is an intervention to change the course of their disease. The most effective way to prevent ARLD is drinking within the United Kingdom Chief Medical Officers’ low-risk drinking guidelines, namely under 14 units per week.

The Department is supporting people who drink above low-risk levels to reduce their alcohol consumption, by encouraging substitution of standard-strength drinks with no- and low-alcohol alternatives. The Department’s consultation on updating labelling guidance for no- and low-alcohol alternatives closed on 23 November 2023 and a response will be published in due course.

As part of the NHS Health Check, information on alcohol consumption is provided to support people to make healthier choices. NHS Health Check guidance recommends that those identified to be drinking at higher-risk levels are referred for liver investigation.

The Department is also supporting people with alcohol dependency through the Drug Strategy and NHS Long Term Plan by facilitating more people in need of treatment into local authority commissioned alcohol treatment services. Additional treatment and recovery funding, made available through the Drug Strategy, can also be used to increase capacity for screening for liver fibrosis in treatment settings and to establish effective referral pathways into treatment for liver disease.