Binge drinking is a serious problem. And I make no excuses for clamping down on it, said Prime Minister David Cameron in a foreword to the Home Office’s new, 32-page ‘alcohol strategy’. He wrote:
“Binge drinking isn’t some fringe issue, it accounts for half of all alcohol consumed in this country. The crime and violence it causes drains resources in our hospitals, generates mayhem on our streets and spreads fear in our communities. My message is simple. We can’t go on like this. We have to tackle the scourge of violence caused by binge drinking. And we have to do it now.
“This strategy sets out how we will attack it from every angle. More powers to stop serving alcohol to people who are already drunk. More powers for local areas to restrict opening and closing times, control the density of licensed premises and charge a late night levy to support policing. More powers for hospitals not just to tackle the drunks turning up in A&E – but also the problem clubs that send them there night after night. And a real effort to get to grips with the root cause of the problem. And that means coming down hard on cheap alcohol.”
The strategy suggests hospital security staff being ‘empowered through the Community Safety Accreditation Scheme’. “Under this scheme, accredited staff can be given powers to issue Penalty Notices for Disorder 80 fines) to those individuals whose drunken behaviour is likely to cause harassment, alarm or distress. They can also take action against the consumption of alcohol in a designated public place. Some hospitals have found it effective to place police officers in A&Es (accident and emergency departments). We would encourage forces to look at this model and consider using late night levy funding to support such a role.”
As the document went on, the NHS Constitution sets a maximum waiting time for A&E departments of four hours; but that abusive or violent behaviour would be reasonable grounds to refuse access to NHS services, meaning staff can refuse to treat drunks who are abusive in A&E. The document said: “We will go even further to tackle violence against hospital staff. We are developing new injunctions as part of our reforms to anti-social behaviour tools and powers and we will explore giving NHS Protect (the body that leads work to identify and tackle crime across the health service) the power to apply for these injunctions. This would give the NHS the ability to deal with individuals who persistently cause a problem in hospitals, for example those who are regularly drunk and abuse staff.” While, then, the document recognised that drunkenness has effects beyond the pub and high street, namely at hospitals where the intoxicated or fighting drunks may end up in the small hours, the document begged the question of whether hospitals want their security staff to act as door staff, ejecting trouble-makers who however may be in need of treatment.
As the document, downloadable from the Home Office website opened by saying, cheap alcohol is too readily available; and, it admitted, previous governments have failed to tackle the problem. The strategy spoke of a ‘range of tools and powers we are giving to local agencies to challenge those people that continue to behave in an unacceptable way and make it easier
to take action against and, if necessary, close down, problem premises’. In more detail, from October 2012, ‘a new late night levy will
empower local areas to make those businesses that sell alcohol late into the night contribute towards the cost of policing and wider local authority action. This will help enable visible and proactive policing at targeted locations’, according to the strategy.
However, much of the document went over old ground; things already in place. For example, there was praise for schemes such as Best Bar None, Purple Flag, Community Alcohol Partnerships, Pubwatch and Business Improvement Districts across the country for showing ‘that a thriving and growing night time economy can operate where excessive drinking is tackled consistently and robustly by business, the police and local authorities working together’. In an interesting example of how Police Community Support Officers (PCSOs) are taking on more police-style work, the report noted that more licensing teams are now made up of PCSOs and support staff and the Government will ‘therefore explore the benefit of an additional discretionary power for PCSOs to enter licensed premises (Section 179 of the Licensing Act 2003) to support the enforcement of licensing locally’.
