Closed consultation

UK clinical guidelines for alcohol treatment: consultation document

Published 16 October 2023

This was published under the 2022 to 2024 Sunak Conservative government

Introduction

The Office for Health Improvement and Disparities is part of the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC). We have worked with the devolved governments in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland to produce the first ever UK clinical guidelines for alcohol treatment.

There is currently no equivalent for alcohol to the guidance Drug misuse and dependence: UK guidelines on clinical management (the ‘orange book’), which has been vital to establish and maintain good practice for drug treatment. The UK clinical guidelines for alcohol treatment will fill this gap.

We convened a UK-wide expert group of senior clinicians, people with lived experience and professionals with specialist alcohol expertise to oversee the development of the guidelines. A parallel group of ‘experts through experience’ regularly contributed to their development.

Objectives

The main objectives of the UK clinical guidelines for alcohol treatment are to:

• develop a clear consensus on good practice
• help services to implement interventions for harmful drinking and alcohol dependence that are recommended by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence

The guidelines provide:

• a detailed framework for specialist service providers to support them in providing high-quality alcohol treatment
• guidance that commissioners can use to inform service specifications and help them check the quality of services
• guidance for other health and social care staff who are involved in helping people with alcohol problems
• guidance on managing and supporting treatment pathways, such as between hospitals and the community, and prisons and the community
• a reference point for national regulatory bodies when inspecting alcohol treatment services

Consultation questions

We’re asking respondents to answer questions on individual chapters as well as questions on the guidelines as a whole.

Questions on individual chapters

The questions on individual chapters are as follows.

Questions

Would you like to comment on specific chapters of the clinical guidelines for alcohol treatment?

• Yes
• No

Which chapter would you like to comment on?

The survey will ask you to select the chapter you would like to answer questions on from a drop-down list. You can answer questions on more than one chapter. The questions will repeat for each chapter you select from the list.

There are 27 chapters in the guidelines. You can see the full list in ‘Appendix: list of chapters’ below.

After you select the chapter you want to comment on, you will be asked the following questions about it.

Question

Do you think that the chapter has any essential information missing on the topic?

• There is some essential information missing
• There is nothing essential missing
• Don’t know

Please explain your answer and include evidence to support it.

Maximum 250 words.

If you think that there is essential information missing on the topic of the chapter, you will be asked to explain your answer and provide evidence to support it. Please focus only on essential information, rather than things that you think are preferable.

Questions

To what extent do you agree or disagree that the guidance in this chapter is clear?

• Strongly agree
• Agree
• Disagree
• Strongly disagree
• Don’t know

How do you think the guidance can be made clearer?

Maximum 250 words.

If you disagree that the guidance in the chapter is clear, you will be asked how you think the guidance can be made clearer.

Questions

To what extent do you agree or disagree that it will be possible to implement the guidance in this chapter?

• Strongly agree
• Agree
• Disagree
• Strongly disagree
• Don’t know

If you think that the guidance in this chapter would not be possible to implement, please explain what would make it difficult to implement.

Maximum 250 words.

If you think that the guidance would not be possible to implement, what would help to implement it?

Maximum 250 words.

If you disagree that the guidance in the chapter would be possible to implement, you will be asked to explain what would make it difficult to implement and what would help you to implement it.

Questions

Is there anything in this chapter which does not apply in your national context?

• Yes
• No
• Don’t know

What do you think does not apply in your national context?

Maximum 250 words.

If you think something in the chapter does not apply in your national context (England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland), you will be asked to explain your answer.

Questions

Is there something missing that is important in your national context?

• Yes
• No
• Don’t know

What do you think is missing?

Include evidence to support your answer. Maximum 250 words.

If you think something is missing that is important in your national context (England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland), you will be asked to tell us what is missing and provide evidence to support it.

Questions on the guidelines as a whole

The survey will ask you to answer the following questions on the guidelines as a whole. These questions will only appear once.

Question

Select the statement you agree with, if any.

• The guidelines as a whole cover all the main topics in alcohol treatment
• There is one or more significant topics missing in the guidelines as a whole

If you think there is a significant topic missing, please say what you think it is and provide evidence.

If you think the guidelines as a whole could be improved, please provide more information.

You will be asked to select the statement you agree with from 2 options.

If you think there is a significant topic missing, you will be asked to tell us what you think is missing and provide evidence to support it.

If you think the guidelines as a whole could be improved, you will be asked to provide more information.

Personal information

We are collecting some personal information. These questions are optional and will only appear once. You can read more about the personal information we’re collecting, as well as your rights as a respondent under the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR), in the ‘Privacy notice’.

How to respond

You can respond to this consultation by completing the online survey on the draft UK clinical guidelines for alcohol treatment

The consultation will be open for 8 weeks. Send your response by 11:59pm on Friday 8 December 2023.

Next steps

Once we have had the opportunity to consider your feedback to the consultation, we will publish a response on GOV.UK.

Privacy notice

Introduction

This notice sets out how we will use the information collected through this online consultation, as well as your rights as a respondent under the UK GDPR.

Data controller

DHSC is the data controller.

What information we collect

When you respond to the consultation online, we will collect information on:

• whether you are responding as an individual member of the public or on behalf of an organisation
• the name of your organisation and where your organisation operates or provides services (if responding on behalf of an organisation)
• what sector you work in
• what the main focus of your work is

If volunteered by you, we will also collect information on:

• where you live in the UK
• your email address

Please do not include any other personal information in your responses to free text questions in the survey.

How we use your information

We collect your information as part of the consultation process:

• for statistical purposes, for example to understand how representative the results are and whether views and experiences vary across organisations
• so that DHSC can contact you for further information about your response

If you have given consent, DHSC can contact you to allow you to amend or delete your response or to send you a reminder before the consultation closes if you have not submitted your final response.

Legal basis for processing your information

The legal basis for processing your information is to perform a task carried out in the public interest: consulting the public on the draft of the UK clinical guidelines for alcohol treatment before its publication.

The legal basis for processing your special category data (in this case, personal data revealing racial or ethnic origin) is that it’s necessary for reasons of public interest in health or social care under article 9 of the UK GDPR. It helps us ensure that the draft UK clinical guidelines for alcohol treatment considers the views and experiences of different demographic groups with different knowledge and experience of alcohol treatment. For more information, you can read this guide to special category data.

Who your information may be shared with

Responses to the online consultation may be seen by:

• DHSC officials helping to develop the UK clinical guidelines for alcohol treatment and manging the consultation process
• the alcohol guidelines development group of senior clinicians, people with lived experience and professionals with specialist alcohol expertise, and the group for experts through experience
• DHSC’s third-party supplier (SocialOptic), who is responsible for running and hosting the online survey

International data transfers and storage locations

Storage of data by DHSC is provided via secure computing infrastructure on servers located in the European Economic Area. DHSC platforms are subject to extensive security protections and encryption measures.

Storage of data by SocialOptic is provided via secure servers located in the UK.

How long we keep your information

We will hold your personal information for up to one year after the online consultation closes. Anonymised information will be kept indefinitely.

We will ask SocialOptic to securely delete the information held on their system one year after the online consultation closes.

How we protect your information and keep it secure

DHSC uses a range of technical, organisational and administrative security measures to protect any information we hold in our records from:

• loss
• misuse
• unauthorised access
• disclosure
• alteration
• destruction

We have written procedures and policies that are regularly audited and reviewed at a senior level.

SocialOptic is Cyber Essentials certified. This is a government-backed scheme that helps organisations protect themselves against the most common cyberattacks.

Your rights

By law, you have a number of rights and processing your data does not take away or reduce these rights, under the UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018.

You have the right to:

• ask for and receive copies of information about you
• get information about you corrected if you think it’s inaccurate
• limit how your information is used, for example you can ask for it to be restricted if you think it’s inaccurate
• object to your information being used
• get information deleted

Some of these rights might not apply when the information is being used for research. We will let you know if this is the case.

Contact us or make a complaint

We will always try to respond to concerns or queries that you have about your data.

If you are unhappy about how your information is being used, or if you want to complain about how your data is used as part of this consultation, you should email data_protection@dhsc.gov.uk or write to:

Data Protection Officer
39 Victoria Street
London
SW1H 0EU

If you are still not satisfied, you can complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO). You can find out how to contact them at the ICO website. Their postal address is:

Information Commissioner's Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF

Changes to this privacy notice

We keep our privacy notice under regular review, and we will update it if necessary. All updated versions will be marked by a change note on the UK clinical guidelines for alcohol treatment consultation page.

Appendix: list of chapters

Part 1: core elements of alcohol treatment

1. Alcohol treatment and recovery: priorities

2. Principles of care

3. Identification and brief interventions

4. Assessment and treatment and recovery planning

5. Psychosocial interventions

6. Recovery support services

7. Employment support

8. Harm reduction

9. Alcohol assertive outreach and a multi-agency team around the person

10. Pharmacological interventions

11. Community-based medically assisted withdrawal

12. Specialist inpatient medically assisted withdrawal

Part 2: specific settings and populations

Settings

13. Community alcohol treatment and recovery services

14. Residential treatment and intensive structured day treatment

15. Primary care and community health services

16. Alcohol care in acute hospitals

17. Alcohol treatment in the criminal justice system

Populations

18. People with co-occurring mental health conditions

19. People with co-occurring physical health conditions

20. Alcohol-related brain damage

21. People experiencing homelessness

22. People experiencing or perpetrating domestic abuse

23. Alcohol treatment and support for young people

24. Pregnancy and perinatal care

25. Developing inclusive services

26. Parents in alcohol treatment services

27. Armed forces