Healthy Living Pharmacy: Holding an awareness event/campaign on alcohol consumption

The below tools can be used to gather information to establish the level of alcohol abuse in the local area:

• Public Health England – Healthier Lives: This tool allows the user to select an area on a map of England to view the prevalence of alcohol abuse, as well as other health issues. This information can be mapped by a local authority (LA) or Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) and can be compared in a table against other LAs or CCGs. A search function for individual GP practices is also available to show how they compare to other practices in their CCG

• Public Health England – Health Profiles: This tool provides a snapshot of health and wellbeing across each local authority in England as portrayed by a range of indicators. They are intended to stimulate discussion between local government and health service providers by highlighting local needs and providing comparisons with other areas as well as with the national average.

• Public Health England – Local Alcohol Profiles for England (LAPE): The tool presents data for 19 alcohol-related indicators and allows users to view and analyse data in a user-friendly format. The LAPE website also provides links to further supporting and relevant information to aid understanding of alcohol-related harm in a local population

• Communicating with patients page on the Community Pharmacy England website

• Healthy Living Pharmacies page on the Community Pharmacy England website

• Community Pharmacy England Briefing 032/19: Healthy Living Pharmacy – Holding a health promotion event/campaign

• Community Pharmacy England Briefing 010/17: Updated NHS Identity Guidelines – NHS logo use by pharmacies

• Community Pharmacy England on-demand webinar: Making the most of social media

• Social media guide for community pharmacy teams and LPCs 

• Community Pharmacy England – Essential facts, stats and quotes page relating to alcohol use

• Public Health England – Healthmatters: harmful drinking and alcohol dependence 

• BMJ Learning – Motivational interviewing in brief consultations

• Drinkaware – Alcohol facts

• e-Learning for Healthcare – Alcohol

• e-Learning for Healthcare – Population Wellbeing Portal

• e-Learning for Healthcare – Making Every Contact Count e-learning

• P3 – Public health awareness campaigns with impact (requires log-in)

• The Centre for Pharmacy Postgraduate Education has a number of programmes available on alcohol misuse

Source: https://www.drinkaware.co.uk/alcohol-facts/

• To keep health risks from alcohol to a low level it is safest not to drink more than 14 units a week on a regular basis

• If you regularly drink as much as 14 units per week, it’s best to spread your drinking evenly over three or more days. If you have one or two heavy drinking episodes a week, you increase your risk of death from long-term illness and injuries

• The risk of developing a range of health problems (including cancers of the mouth, throat and breast) increases the more you drink on a regular basis

• If you wish to cut down the amount you drink, a good way to help achieve this is to have several drink-free days a week

• Drinkaware has many tools and resources that can be ordered from their website

• Consider displaying  AUDIT-C cards in the Health Promotion Zone as conversation starters

• Consider using unit measure cups and ask customers to pour a unit to help them learn what constitutes one unit

• Use props such as beer or drunk goggles to simulate the effects of drinking

• e-Learning for Healthcare – All Our Health programme

• Facebook – Making Every Contact Count (MECC) Community

• East Sussex county Council – Alcohol and sensible drinking – health promotion resources

• Health Education England – Making Every Contact Count

• Public Health England – Alcohol Learning Resources

• The NHS Website – Alcohol support and alcohol misuse