Booze culture is going down far too easily
Renfrewshire saw 45 alcohol-related deaths last year
Jack Thomson Local Democracy Reporter
A culture of “drinking to excess” has become the norm in Renfrewshire and that needs to change, a public health expert has warned.
There were 45 alcohol- related deaths in the area last year, while 1,319 adults were hospitalised because of misuse of the substance.
A total of 3,704 days were spent in hospital, which meant the average stay was 2.8 days. This was a day more than the NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde area.
Elaina Smith, health improvement lead at Renfrewshire Health and Social Care Partnership (HSCP), spoke of the perils of “an alcohol rich society” at Wednesday’s Joint Licensing Forum and Licensing Board.
She said: “We know that deaths in 2017 came down but that was still 45 people. 1,319 is a downward trend and hopefully that will continue to go down.
“We still have a culture where drinking to excess is the norm and that needs to change.
“We still have that expectation of going out to drink. It’s not really a choice for a lot of people.
“We have an alcohol-rich society. It’s in our cinemas and our theatres, there’s very few places where it’s not there.
“We know that people binge drink on average once or twice a month.”
Ms Smith explained the number of instances where drug and alcohol misuse was cited as a reason for a child being on the protection register has “plateaued”.
However, she admitted this was a concern because children with parents who misuse alcohol “are likely to fall into that behaviour themselves”.
Alcohol contributes to eight per cent of the burden with disease in Scotland, compared to 5.1 per cent globally.
Ms Smith said recent studies from Cancer Research UK show that alcohol is becoming far more closely associated with the development of cancer among people.
“We are at the same place we were at with tobacco 40 years ago and the link to lung cancer,” she said.
“There’s more of an association with alcohol being important in the development of a person having cancer.”
Renfrewshire HSCP wi l l work closely with the new local partnerships, which are set to replace local area committees, to determine the extent of alcohol misuse in specific towns and villages.