Comedians campaign to cut binge drinking
Updated on 14 January 2010
It is not big, it is not clever and it is not funny. Jo Brand and Bill Bailey join a campaign encouraging parents to tell children that alcohol is no laughing matter.
Some of Britain's top comedians have joined a government campaign to get parents to warn their children about the dangers of alcohol.
The aim of the 'why let drink decide?' campaign is to get across the message without appearing uncool.
It includes appearances from Bill Bailey, Jo Brand and Russell Kane to persuade young people, through their parents, to drink responsibly.
The campaign highlights the role played by alcohol in fuelling problems such as unwanted teen pregnancies, road accidents and poor marks at school.
The health secretary Andy Burnham said today the public "mood has changed" over alcohol, and claimed some drink was "ludicrously cheap".
But the government rejected calls for setting a minimum price for alcohol for the moment, saying such a move wouldn't be "sensible".
The Scottish government has already put forward proposals to bring in minimum pricing for alcohol as part of a series of measures to tackle Scotland's drink problem.
'Risky drinkers' campaign
The NHS in Nottingham is particularly worried about the number of adults drinking at home. It has set up a scheme to target people who are not alcoholics, but drinkers who could end up that way.
The city has some of the highest figures in England for alcohol-related hospital admissions and deaths and it has the highest rate of alcohol-related crime.
The programme looks out for what are called "increasing risk drinkers", people who do not depend on alcohol yet, but whose health indicates they could become alcoholics further down the line.
The NHS estimates there are 42,000 risky drinkers in Nottingham and has spent nearly a quarter of a million pounds on the scheme.
Eight hundred and fifty GPs and nurses have been trained to spot the signs in their patients that they are drinking too much; for example high blood pressure or problems sleeping.
They then offer the patient the option of six advice sessions to explore their drinking patterns.
The sessions use what the NHS calls "motivational interviewing" techniques.
It reports good results from students, to middle class professionals who did not realise how much they were drinking at home after a long day's work.
