Alcohol unit pricing blamed for increase in A&E admissions

MINIMUM unit pricing of alcohol has made accident and emergency departments busier, s uggest researchers.

The Scottish Government’s flagship policy to reduce the fall-out from problem drinking is having the opposite effect, an NHS survey has found.

Data collected from hospitals after price rises were applied indicates A&E departments dealt with thousands of additional alcohol-related cases per year.

Minimum unit pricing (MUP) was introduced in 2018. Ministers promised it would be reviewed in 2024 and axed if ineffective.

The study, which has yet to be peerreviewed but was released by The Lancet last month, claims the data should encourage the Government to continue with the scheme and increase the minimum price from the present 50p per unit.

However, critics claim it is proof the strategy is failing.

Policy consultant John Duffy, a former Scotland Office adviser, said: ‘From the beginning, I have pointed out the predicted effects of this policy were unfounded.

‘Many of the really cheap products – for example, some of the industrial white ciders – rather than becoming more expensive have in many cases simply disappeared from the market.

‘ Meanwhile, some premium alcohol products have seen their prices reduced to the minimum unit price. It could be that removing cheaper products has boosted the sales of such popular, more expensive drinks.

‘If the precise predictions that were presented as reasons to introduce this policy are ever properly assessed, they would show MUP to be a failure.’

NHS Scotland, Public Health Scotland and a number of universities including Glasgow, Stirling, Aberdeen, Hull and King’s College London participated in the study.

Researchers profiled thousands of patients arriving at A&E in Glasgow and Edinburgh Royal Infirmaries over three weeks in

February 2018, before MUP was introduced. They repeated this in autumn 2018 and February 2019, and mirrored the study at hospitals in Liverpool and Sheffield as a comparison.

The study found an extra 258 A&E attendances in Scotland ‘as a result of the introduction of MUP’ – equivalent to 2,236 in a year. It concludes: ‘It is estimated that an additional 1 per cent of A&E attendances were alcoholrelated than would have been the case in the absence of MUP.

‘ The odds f or an attendee having at least one alcohol-related diagnosis increased by 25 per cent relative to change observed in England after MUP.’

But the report states: ‘We found no clear evidence that MUP at a level of 50p per unit reduced alcohol- related attendances... the implication is that the price per unit for MUP should be raised.’

Supporters of MUP say the amount of alcohol sold in Scotland’s shops fell 4 per cent per person in the first year, though sales of fortified wine, such as Buckfast, rose by 16.4 per cent.

Scottish Conservative health spokesman Donald Cameron said: ‘We were supportive of minimum alcohol pricing with the important caveat that it should be reviewed if proven to be ineffective.’

A Scottish Government spokesman said: ‘ The l atest annual statistics showed the total volume of alcohol sales per adult in Scotland in 2019 remained at its lowest level since 1994 – for the second year running.

‘These are encouraging early results for MUP.

‘We continue to keep the level of minimum alcohol price under review and will consider all relevant emerging evidence.’

‘Encouraging early results’