New 'Time To Rethink Drink' plan aims to tackle alcohol issues in Sunderland

Sunderland City Council health chiefs have worked with partners to draw up a new strategy titled “Calling Time: It’s Time To Rethink Drink” in a bid to mitigate issues linked to alcohol in the area.

It centres around three objectives: prevention and early intervention, providing specialist support to promote a quality treatment and recovery system, and protecting children, young people and families from alcohol related harm.

The strategy went before March’s meeting of the city council’s health and wellbeing board, where it was unanimously supported by those in attendance.

Councillor Louise Farthing, cabinet member for children, learning and skills, stressed more needs to be done nationally on the issue, adding the cost of living crisis and Covid-19 will have exacerbated existing issues.

She said: “It’s just that education, it’s that prevention agenda which is so important and which we really need to stress I think, not just locally but nationally.

“If we had gone down the minimum pricing way that happened in Scotland we might be in a different position nationally, we’ve just left it all too late.

“It might all change in a few years, but there is a whole raft of people who have been damaged both by the cost of living and the covid lockdown.”

She added key steps to focus on as part of the strategy include promoting alcohol-free pregnancies and the impact the substance can have on maintaining a healthy weight.

Gerry Taylor, the city council’s director of public health, added: “One of the difficult things with alcohol is getting across in a way that’s helpful to people what is a “safe” amount of alcohol.

“There may be some sort of insight work that we want to do to think about those people who are regularly drinking more than they should be, perhaps at home, to understand some of that a little bit more.”

As part of the strategy officers spoke with individuals who have accessed the city’s substance support services previously, while it has also gone before the local authority’s health scrutiny committee.

Council reports noted “no single approach will be successful in isolation” in tackling the issue, making partnership working key as alcohol remains one of the “key drivers of health inequalities and premature death”.

The strategy has been developed via the Sunderland Drug and Alcohol Harm Reduction Group, which includes partners such as Northumbria Police, treatment provider Wear Recovery and the local hospital trust.

Key priorities include promoting alcohol-free childhoods and pregnancies, minimising the harms the substance causes, reducing the availability of cheap alcohol and creating a culture where people drink less.

Councillor Kelly Chequer, chair of the health and wellbeing board, praised the plans and the positive impact they could have on the city’s health.

She said the strategy is an “excellent piece of work” which she is “really proud of”, adding it will be key to future work in the area.