Commenting on today’s announcements from the Prime Minister David Cameron, Sir Ian Gilmore, the RCP’s special adviser on alcohol and the chair of the Alcohol Health Alliance, said:
I am delighted that the Prime Minister has given his personal commitment to tackling the huge toll of harm caused by social drinking. He rightly identifies cheap drink as a major factor and I encourage him to join Scotland, Northern Ireland and Ireland in meeting this head on with a minimum unit price for alcohol.
In addition to minimum pricing, the following measures would also help to reduce alcohol-related harm:
- alcohol should be taxed by how much alcohol a product contains
- stronger measures to protect children and young people from alcohol marketing
- mandatory labelling on alcohol
- the NHS needs to provide more services dedicated to recognising, treating and managing people with alcohol dependency and alcohol-related diseases. These include more alcohol care teams, alcohol specialist nurse services and effective links in alcohol services across primary and secondary care.