Alcohol Brief Interventions in Pharmacy

Niamh is just back from London where she (and nearly 100 others) attended the first ever conference on alcohol brief interventions in pharmacy at King’s College. An interesting day which further developed our knowledge of what works in terms of ABI in a pharmacy setting based on the experiences of a project in Lambeth. Create has a long history of work in this field in Wales, Glasgow and Grampian including implementing the first ever multisite trial of brief interventions in a pharmacy setting. At the conference, Niamh ran a workshop on training and was promoting INEBRIA, an international network of people interested in promoting alcohol screening and brief interventions across the world. For more information see www.inebria.net

There’s lots happening around ABI in pharmacy settings just now, health boards in Scotland are increasingly interested in this setting as they roll out the extended target for 2011/12. Although pharmacy brief interventions still don’t count towards the target, government guidance for 2011/12 welcomes opportunities for evidence gathering in this and other innovative settings. Click here for guidance.

Final data from the rehearsal clinical trial in Grampian for which Create provided training and advice has now been submitted to the Chief Scientist’s Office and will be presented in various conferences and publications in 2011 including INEBRIA. (www.inebriaboston.org)

Pharmacy is also one of the settings which will be supported by our Ask About Alcohol project in Wigan.

Niamh is in discussions about setting up an INEBRIA Special Interest Group for pharmacy, please use the contact form to express your interest or to ask about any aspect of this work.