Health and Social Care Bill

My Lords, as my noble friend Lady Finlay has eloquently explained, alcohol misuse is one of the major public health challenges that we face in the UK. It causes wide harm to individuals and places a significant burden on the National Health Service. Even more widely, it has a devastating effect on families, on communities and within wider society, and it is vital that the reforms to the NHS are effective in helping to address this challenge. This is an important debate in an uncertain time for alcohol services. I understand that local authorities are set to commission alcohol services out of their ring-fenced £4 billion budget, but there is no guarantee how much of that will go to alcohol services. Furthermore, public health is a wide-ranging area and there are concerns that alcohol services may have to compete with wider public health initiatives. I hope that the Government will use this important opportunity to show how alcohol services will be prioritised in the reforms. I know that one particular opportunity lies in the Government’s alcohol strategy which is expected in the near future. I would welcome a commitment from the Government that this strategy will make clear how alcohol services will be made a priority in local authority delivery and in primary and secondary NHS care. At the same time primary care and the new clinical commissioning groups will need to continue to play a key role in screening and treating people with alcohol misuse problems, and it is vital that they are incentivised to do so. The quality and outcomes framework is a vital primary care lever to ensure that GPs prioritise specific conditions. At present there is one very limited QOF indicator on alcohol to provide lifestyle advice to patients with hypertension. The Government have indicated that 15 per cent of the QOF funding will be assigned to public health and primary prevention indictors from 2013. However, at present all of the proposed public health indicators are focused on smoking, and the indicator on screening for alcohol misuse has, regrettably, been rejected. What is clear is that integration of services will be the key to ensuring that people with alcohol misuse problems are not lost in the system and that the various agencies involved in care work together. The amendments in this group make the important case that people who understand alcohol misuse and alcohol services should be involved in health and well-being boards and in producing health and well-being strategies. Health and well-being boards seem to present significant opportunities ahead, but only if alcohol is made a clear local priority.