Ask About Alcohol: Brief Interventions Training for Pharmacy Staff in Wigan and Leigh

The ‘Ask about Alcohol’ project is an alcohol brief interventions initiative from Create Consultancy.

Alcohol is a source of health inequalities, people from lower socio-economic groups are more likely to be harmed by a given level of alcohol consumption. However, household surveys show that managerial/professional groups drink more on average, are more likely to have drunk and have ‘binged’ in the last week than other groups. Increasing alcohol use is associated with more unhealthy behaviours, it also increases the damage caused by other unhealthy behaviours.

Alcohol brief interventions have a strong evidence base and have been shown through various randomised controlled trials, meta-analyses and a Cochrane review to be effective. The ‘number needed to treat’ (NNT) is around ten so for every ten people drinking above lower risk levels who receive a brief intervention, one will reduce their drinking to lower risk levels. This compares well to smoking advice (NNT = 20) and even smoking advice with nicotine replacement therapy (NNT = 10).

NICE public health guidance (PH 24) states that ‘Managers of NHS-commissioned services must ensure staff are trained to provide alcohol screening and structured brief advice’. The guidance further highlights that the ‘benefits of using a brief intervention are most clearly seen when it is used with people who are unaware that alcohol is compromising their mental or physical wellbeing. This approach may also help those people who may be aware that their drinking is harming either themselves or others, but are ambivalent about cutting down’.

In 2010 Create Consultancy was commissioned by Wigan Drug and Alcohol Action Team to deliver an Ask About Alcohol project in response to concerns about the significant alcohol problems prevalent in Wigan and evidence of the efficacy of an alcohol brief intervention approach as a way of addressing consumption and related problems. The project aimed to support practitioners and services to embed and mainstream brief interventions so that they become an integral and important part of their day to day work.

This support took many forms including the assimilation of evidence and best practice into a model of how to perform brief interventions in practice along with materials to guide and support the delivery of an evidence-based intervention. Learning and development support included training to provide staff with the necessary skills, knowledge and confidence to identify alcohol problems and discuss alcohol with service users and to take a motivational interviewing approach to supporting people who lack motivation or confidence to change.

For further information on the Ask About Alcohol project please contact Niamh or Susie.