Enhanced integrated alcohol treatment for Northants

An enhanced alcohol treatment service is to be launched which aims to build upon the success of the current service to reduce admissions to hospital for alcohol harm and support patients more effectively in the community.

The Northamptonshire Partnership’s Alcohol Harm Reduction Strategy has, over the past two years, supported improvements in health in the county. The Strategy is a partnership between NHS Northamptonshire, Northamptonshire Police, Northamptonshire County Council, and the voluntary sector. The strategy has also demonstrated that to improve alcohol treatment even further, it needs to be embedded in the community to ensure that all patients are supported post-treatment. We hope to continue to reduce the number of alcohol specific hospital admissions using the following methods:

• Providing more community based services to support patients with alcohol problems
• Integrating health services across the county

The county’s two Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs), Nene Commissioning and Corby Healthcare, are working with NHS trusts in Northamptonshire to develop the services.

The new service will replace existing alcohol services in the county and will include the following:

• Community based alcohol treatment packages
• Additional resources to provide mental health triage assessments in Accident and Emergency departments These will be carried out by a qualified Community Psychiatric Nurse (CPN).
• Joined up approach to patient care to ensure clinicians have access to appropriate information and investing in IT infrastructure

NHS Northamptonshire invested £1,150,000 over the last two years after the county was ‘red flagged’ for alcohol harm in 2009. The rate of increase in alcohol related hospital admissions has reduced to 4% (from 17% between 2008/09 and 2009/10) and compared with a national rate of 8%.

Professor Stephen Horsley, Director of Public Health for NHS Northamptonshire, said: "Reducing alcohol harm is one of the top priorities for health services in Northamptonshire so this integration of community based alcohol treatment services within the county is really important. In 2010/11 there were 2,027 alcohol specific hospital admissions, costing the local NHS around £2.9m.

"Based on England average rates, if we do not do anything and the rate continues to rise, alcohol specific hospital admissions will cost the NHS in Northamptonshire an additional £1.4m by 2014/15."

Dr Darin Seiger, Chair of Nene Commissioning, said: "All GPs and nurses are really keen to help those patients who have both physical and mental health problems related to alcohol and we are confident that the greater integration of alcohol treatment services, will both reduce the number of people who frequently attend hospital through alcohol harm, and also help us to identify these patients earlier so that we can help them more effectively and efficiently.

 "We will do this by improving communication between the agencies involved, providing an integrated, multi-disciplinary team approach to managing patients, and improving patient outcomes through integrated care within the community."

Dr Peter Wilczynski, Chair of Corby Healthcare, said: “We hope that by having in place better community based treatement services, less people will have to be admitted to hospital for the more expensive inpatient treatment. Equally, by enabling mental health triage assessments within A&E, will ensure patients receive a more timely mental health assessment and a reduction in the number of days they stay in hospital.”

Click here if you are concerned about your alcohol intake or would like further information on the effects of alcohol.