The Department holds data only for hospital activity of people with alcohol-related liver disease. We have provided a count of finished consultant episodes (FCEs) with a primary diagnosis code of alcoholic liver disease for the years 2008-09 to 2012-13 broken down by strategic health authority (SHA) of treatment.

It should be noted that these data should not be described as a count of people as the same person may have had more than one episode of care in any given year.

Prisons have achieved considerable success in reducing the level of drug misuse against a background of a continuing high demand for drugs. Drug misuse as measured by random mandatory drug testing (MDT) has fallen 17.4 percentage points over the past 16 years despite the fact that more drugs are being tested for.

MDT, which runs to standardised procedures across prisons, has three main aims, one of which is to supply detailed information on patterns of drugs-misuse in prisons and is used by the National Offender Management Service to measure the level of drug misuse in prisons.

A single episode of drug misuse over a defined period, strictly interpreted, would deprive a prison of drug free status. Prisons can perform very well in keeping drugs out of prison but technically not be drug free.

Over the 2012-13 financial year, three prisons in England and Wales reported no drug misuse as measured by random MDT. 96 prisons in England and Wales reported no drug misuse, as measured by random MDT, in at least one month of the 2012-13 financial year.

The data in this answer have been drawn from live administrative data systems which may be amended at any time. Although care is taken when processing and analysing the returns, the detail collected is subject to the inaccuracies inherent in any large scale recording system. The data are not subject to audit.

Commissioning of local addiction services is the responsibility of local authorities and clinical commissioning groups. Training of health workers is the responsibility of employers, supported by Health Education England and Public Health England (PHE). PHE guidance on commissioning treatment for people dependent on prescription and over-the-counter medicines makes clear that consultation with those affected by addiction to medicines is an invaluable source of additional information.

The previous Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Public Health (Anna Soubry) has met with the All Party Parliamentary Group for Involuntary Tranquilliser Addiction, which has close links with patient groups.

The Department has also convened and supported round table events on addiction to medicines, which included patient groups.

[holding answer 16 December 2013]: The National Crime Agency works with Border Force and other law enforcement agencies to detect illicit goods, including substances controlled under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971, and to prosecute those responsible for the importation or distribution of these controlled substances in the UK. The specific controls put in place are a matter for law enforcement, and in any case it would not be sensible to itemise these.

In addition the Home Office recently worked with UK law enforcement on a concerted programme of enforcement activity on new psychoactive substances, many of which are controlled under the Misuse of Drugs Act. This activity included enhanced resources for detecting illicit goods such as controlled drugs. The Home Office Centre for Applied Science and Technology supported this activity with real-time forensic analysis of suspect seizures.

We are not aware of any steering group with the purpose of reducing hospital admissions for young people dependent on alcohol.

Public Health England (PHE) is developing a model pathway to reduce under 18 year olds’ alcohol-related attendances in accident and emergency departments. PHE has been working with an expert group which has collated sample pathways from all over England. The next meeting will be in early 2014.

At present drug tests under licence are paid for and administered by the National Offender Management Service but will, under the Transforming Rehabilitation reforms, be delivered and paid for by providers of probation services from across the public, private and voluntary sectors. The proposed extension of drug testing in the Offender Rehabilitation Bill gives the Secretary of State a discretionary power to impose a drug testing requirement on offenders released from custody. The Government will provide guidance but it will be for the individual providers to decide when and how frequently to test offenders.

There will be costs associated with breaching offenders who test positive for drugs following the extension of drug testing requirements. It is not known which offenders providers will choose to test. The Offender Rehabilitation Bill impact assessment provided an illustrative scenario where 10% of offenders released from custody are tested, which would be around 9,000 offenders per year. It is estimated that this could result in around 1,000 recalls to custody per year, at a cost of around £1 million per year but this has to be seen in the wider context of the savings made by reductions in reoffending.

At present drug tests under licence are paid for and administered by the National Offender Management Service but will, under the Transforming Rehabilitation reforms, be delivered and paid for by providers of probation services from across the public, private and voluntary sectors. The proposed extension of drug testing in the Offender Rehabilitation Bill gives the Secretary of State a discretionary power to impose a drug testing requirement on offenders released from custody. The Government will provide guidance but it will be for the individual providers to decide when and how frequently to test offenders.

There will be costs associated with breaching offenders who test positive for drugs following the extension of drug testing requirements. It is not known which offenders providers will choose to test. The Offender Rehabilitation Bill impact assessment provided an illustrative scenario where 10% of offenders released from custody are tested, which would be around 9,000 offenders per year. It is estimated that this could result in around 1,000 recalls to custody per year, at a cost of around £1 million per year but this has to be seen in the wider context of the savings made by reductions in reoffending.

The extension of drug testing under licence to Class A and Class B drugs is designed to assess how the offender is complying with their licence and supervision conditions and support efforts to reduce reoffending. This has been informed by the Surveying Prisoner Crime Reduction study which shows that 61% of offenders who reported using Class A drugs in the four weeks before custody reoffended, compared with 48% of those who reported using Class B and/or C drugs in the four weeks before custody, and 39% who had not used drugs in the four weeks before custody. In comparison, 30% of those who had never used drugs reoffended.

Two recent studies have assessed the number of alcohol liaison nurses in accident and emergency departments (A&E).

A King's College London survey in 2012 found that 72% of A&E departments in England had access to an alcohol health worker or clinical nurse specialist.

This year, a report by the National Confidential Inquiry into Patient Outcome and Death (‘Measuring the Units, A review of patients who died with alcohol-related liver disease’) found that 161 out of 205 hospitals (79%) in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, the Isle of Man, Guernsey and Jersey reported having an alcohol liaison service.

Public Health England has recently conducted a survey of hospital-based alcohol services which includes information about alcohol liaison nurses. The report of the survey will be published in early 2014.

Meetings are held at ministerial level to discuss matters arising from the strategy, supported by regular official level meetings of a cross-Government alcohol strategy implementation group, involving Departments with an interest in the strategy.

The Government also engages with other external partners, including health, enforcement and industry bodies, through the Government and Partners Alcohol Working Group.

The Government has introduced a range of measures to help tackle alcohol-related crime and disorder. It has radically reformed the Licensing Act 2003 to rebalance it in favour of local communities. Key measures implemented in 2012 include the new early morning alcohol restriction orders and the late night levy powers. These allow local authorities to restrict the sale of alcohol at night, including off-licence sales, and to allow local authorities to require premises selling alcohol late at night to contribute to the costs of policing the late night economy. Other recent reforms have increased local powers and made it easier to review, close down or impose conditions on problem premises. The Government will legislate by April 2014 to tackle the worst excesses of heavily discounted alcohol by banning sales below the level of duty plus VAT. Through the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Bill, currently before Parliament, the Government aims to simplify and increase the flexibility of tools and powers available to local communities to tackle antisocial behaviour.

The following table contains the sum of the estimated alcohol-related admissions, using attributable fractions for 0 to 12-year-olds and 0 to 17-year-olds residents in England.

It should be noted that these figures are not a count of people and represent an estimated number of admissions that were attributable to alcohol.

Alcohol attributable fractions (AAFs) are based on the proportion of a given diagnosis or injury that is estimated to be attributed to alcohol. Some diagnoses or injuries will, by definition, be wholly attributable to alcohol and have an AAF of one, others will only be partly attributable to alcohol and have an AAF greater than zero, but less than one. Diagnoses or injuries that are not attributable at all to alcohol will have an AAF of zero.

These figures are derived by summing all AAFs for the relevant admissions and should therefore only be interpreted as an estimate of the number of admissions that can be attributed to alcohol.

It should also be noted that attributable fractions are not available for children under 16. Therefore figures for this age group relate only to wholly-attributable admissions, where the attributable fraction is one.

The sum of AAF¹ for admission episodes for (a) 0 to 12-year-olds and (b) 0 to 17-year-olds where (i) the AAF for the episode is one (wholly attributable to alcohol) and (ii) the AAF for the episode is less than one (partially attributable to alcohol) for the years 2008-09 to 2012-13².

It is not possible to identify 'detoxified at birth' using the ICD-10 classification¹ Instead we have provided a count of finished admission birth episodes where there was a primary or secondary diagnosis of neonatal withdrawal symptoms from maternal use of drugs of addiction.

ICD-10 code used: P96.1 Neonatal withdrawal symptoms form maternal use of drugs of addiction.