Casualty patients quizzed to earmark problem drinkers

Specialist staff in A&E departments in Bradford, York and Grimsby are carrying out the research to identify people with a drink problem and offer them support including sessions with experts. More services are planned in Sheffield, Barnsley and Scunthorpe amid concerns over heavy drinking. Prime Minister David Cameron yesterday signalled support for councils which want to ban shops and bars from selling cheap alcohol.

An alcohol clinical nurse specialist at Bradford Royal Infirmary Sue Morris said: "Everyone who comes to A&E is offered the opportunity to fill out a questionnaire about their alcohol consumption; this enables us to identify people with a problem and those who would benefit from some help or advice are then referred to our alcohol team. More severe cases can be referred for hospital treatment, others may be directed towards local voluntary organisations for assistance and others may just benefit from some structured advice and guidance.

"We want to see fewer people being admitted to hospital with illnesses connected with excessive drinking. Some 15,000 people in Bradford are dependent on alcohol.

"By getting to people early, educating them about how much is safe to drink and getting them help where they need it we are confident we will be able to reduce the number of people with alcohol-related problems generally. We recently surveyed the people we have treated and received overwhelmingly positive results, which is encouraging."

A spokeswoman for charity Alcohol Concern welcomed the initiative which other areas are also adopting. "It means dealing with people early rather than patching them up and sending them out of the door only for them to be back again the next week," she said.

"Lots of people also drink outside the limit but sometimes if that is raised with them it's been shown to make them address their drinking."

Mr Cameron said plans to introduce a minimum price per unit of alcohol of 50p in Greater Manchester would be looked at "very sympathetically" –although he cautioned it could fall foul of competition rules.

Ten local authorities in the area want bylaws to address public disorder and health issues caused by binge-drinking.