Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if she will take steps to increase awareness of (a) alcohol harm and (b) support services for alcohol abuse.

The Department is aware of and continues to act to reduce levels of harm caused by alcohol use. The Department continues to promote the United Kingdom Chief Medical Officers’ Low Risk Drinking Guidelines in England through online platforms, and local authorities continue to promote them as part of their public health duties. This provides the public with the most up-to-date scientific information to help people make informed decisions about their own drinking, including the health harms of alcohol consumption. The Government has also published guidance and worked with the alcohol industry to ensure that alcohol labels reflect these guidelines for drinks produced after September 2019. This ensures consumers have the best available information at the point of purchase or consumption.

The Government takes a wide-ranging approach to addressing alcohol-related harms, including the establishment of alcohol care teams in the 25% acute hospitals in England with the greatest need through the NHS Long Term Plan, and improvements to the alcohol and drug treatment system through the 10-year Drug Strategy.

Although the primary focus of the strategy is drugs, implementation of the strategy is also benefitting people seeking alcohol treatment, through mechanisms such as new commissioning standards and plans to build back the drug and alcohol treatment workforce. £532 million of additional funding is being invested in local authority commissioned substance misuse treatment services in England between 2022/23 and 2024/25, to increase the number of people in substance misuse treatment by 54,500 over this period.

The Department launched its drug and alcohol treatment press partnership campaign on 18 January 2024. The content in the campaign will aim to build awareness of the effectiveness of drug and alcohol treatment, how it can help and how to access it. The Press Partnership is a programme run by the Department which works with over 350 national, regional, local and multicultural print newspapers, with a reach of over 34% of adults in England, or 17.7 million.