Tag Archives: Tom Scanlon

Drug and Alcohol Conference 5th July 2012

The Drugs & Alcohol Today exhibition co-hosted with the 16th Annual Sussex DAAT Drug & Alcohol conference

Thursday 5th July 2012               Holiday Inn, Brighton

The event features a full programme of CPD accredited seminars and the exhibition of local, regional and national organisations and projects.

Only £30 to attend, with free places available to people currently using drug and/or alcohol services, unwaged, full-time students and volunteers.

How to register to attend

Exhibitors include

  • ADFAM
  • Pavilion bookshop
  • Brighton & Hove Drug & Alcohol Action Team
  • Frontier Medical Group
  • Action for Change
  • Blithe Computer Systems
  • Phoenix Futures
  • Kenward Trust
  • Open University
  • Trust the Process Counselling
  • Illy Systems

Seminars include

  • Drugs strategy update: the current landscape
  • Unpicking the alcohol recovery agenda: how can local authorities combine responsibilities and resources to maximum benefit?
  • The long view: what does the future look like for the sector without a national champion?
  • Managing substance misuse during pregnancy
  • What does recovery mean for families?
  • Prevention, alcohol, and young people
  • Transitions for young people
  • Case Study: Delivering an effective early intervention model for drugs & alcohol – Nottingham DrugAware Programme
  • Resilience
  • Recovery Pathway
  • Case Study: The Frequent Flyers Project
  • Case Study: The hostel-based Clinical Nurse Pilot
  • Peer mentoring, SMART and volunteering
  • Drug & alcohol consultations in A&E
  • Workforce support & development
  • Case study: Operation Street
  • Joint commissioning for substance misuse
  • The role of GPs in recovery

Speakers include

  • Martin Barnes, Chief Executive, DrugScope
  • Eric Appleby, Chief Executive, Alcohol Concern
  • Carole Sharma, Chief Executive, Federation of Drug & Alcohol Professionals
  • Richard Pike, South East Recovery Community Coordinator, CRI
  • Joss Smith, Director of Policy and Regional Development, ADFAM
  • Andy Winter, Chief Executive, Brighton Housing Trust
  • Mark Gilman, National Strategic Recovery Lead, National Treatment Agency
  • Sergeant Richard Siggs, Sussex Police
  • Nicola Singleton, Director of Policy Research, UKDPC
  • Tom Scanlon, Director of Public Health, NHS Brighton & Hove

The Big Alcohol Debate is essential for a healthy and happy Brighton and Hove

I am delighted that a wide-ranging debate on alcohol and its impact on Brighton andHoveis to take place between now and the new year.

The Big Alcohol Debate is long overdue.  I have previously posted statistics and comments on this issue, and it is worth repeating some that were printed in today’s Argus in an excellent centre page spread by Siobhan Ryan.

  • Men lose on average 12.3 months of life due to alcohol while women lose on average 5.6 months;
  • Male deaths directly due to alcohol are 23.7 per 100,000 of the population, for women it is 9.5 per 100,000;
  • There are 689.3 male alcohol-specific hospital admissions per 100,000 and 333.5 female admissions;
  • There are 9.2 alcohol-related recorded crimes for every 1,000 people in the City.

Dr. Tom Scanlon, Brighton and Hove’s Director of Public Health, said: “We have raised concerns in the past on regular occasions in terms of deaths and illnesses linked to alcohol, and the noise and the nuisance and the crime.

“We are basically asking everyone what they think about alcohol in the city and what they would do about it.  The idea is to build up a picture of what exactly is going on.  Some may say nothing needs to be done, some may say lots needs to be done.  Some may say fewer off-licences are needed and there should be an extension of the cumulative impact zone to make it more difficult to open up licensed premises,  Or maybe we should be focusing on something else?”

My personal view is that the situation has become substantially worse in the City following the liberalisation of licensing laws by the previous government.  There is a direct correlation between the ease of supply and harmful use and addiction.

There are many good people in Brighton and Hove seeking to do something about the problems caused by alcohol to individuals, families, the community and the economy of Brighton andHove.  But they have both hands tied behind their backs by current legislation.  The outcome I am hoping to see from the Big Alcohol Debate is that our three members of parliament, Simon Kirby, Caroline Lucas and Mike Weatherley, unite to put pressure on the government to bring in sensible licensing laws that allow local councils, the police and magistrates to bring in and/or enforce proper restrictions on the availability of alcohol.  That would be a good example of localism.

(An aside: In welcoming the Big Alcohol Debate I have been tweeting one concern – the Debate promotes a website Think Drink Drugs that fails to mention abstinence-based services in Brighton and Hove.  I have been raising this as a concern since I first heard about the Big Alcohol Debate but, as yet, abstinence-based services remain excluded from where people can get help.  It is not the only example of where this happens.  I have asked whether excluding such services is policy or attitudinal.  I await an answer but will continue tweeting about it until a more balanced approach is used by the City Council and Health Promotion).

We must have that mature debate about drugs, and we must include alcohol

During the election campaign there was a debate amongst candidates about drug policy.  I commented at the time that the debate was too important to have during an election campaign and that there was a need for a mature debate once the heightened state of affairs that characterise election campaigns had calmed down.

In today’s Argus, the city’s Director of Public Health, Tom Scanlon, receives coverage for his annual report. He reports that there are 53,000 hazardous drinkers, just over 24% of the population aged over 16.  He said: “Put simply, it is not overstating the case to say that in Brighton and Hove an awful lot of people die or fall ill as a result of alcohol consumption, while the lives of many others are disrupted and in some cases ruined”.

Recorded alcohol related hospital admissions rose from 855 per 100,000 of the population in 2003/04 to 1,870 per 100,000 in 208/09.

It is time for that mature debate on drugs, and we must include the most dangerous drug of all, alcohol, in that debate.