Local authorities are responsible for assessing the needs of their local population, including older people with drug related problems, and commissioning services to meet these needs.

Local authorities and the National Health Service need to work together to assess local needs and align commissioning to support people who have co-occurring mental health and drug use conditions, to try to prevent them needing to be treated in hospital.

Public Health England (PHE) works with local authorities, supporting the needs assessment and commissioning process, with data, guidance and other tools. This includes publishing guidance on meeting the needs of people with co-occurring mental health and drug use conditions, and providing data about these conditions on PHE’s Fingertips website.

Local authorities are responsible for commissioning effective drug and alcohol prevention and treatment services based on an assessment of local need. Public Health England (PHE) supports local authorities in this work, by providing bespoke data, value for money tools, topical briefings, and advice on good practice to help local authorities meet the needs of their local population, including older people.

PHE is engaged in a series of work programmes that aim to reduce the incidence of alcohol-related problems and help provide support to older people, such as advocating the national roll out of an alcohol misuse screening question that has been part of the NHS Health Check since 2013. The NHS Health Check is offered to three million 40-74 year olds per year.

In addition, the United Kingdom Chief Medical Officers have produced new low risk drinking guidelines which provide the public with the latest information about the health risks of different levels and patterns of drinking. The guidelines enable people to make informed choices about their drinking. The guidelines are available at the following link:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/alcohol-consumption-advice-on-low-risk-drinking

We are aware of the evidence showing an increase in the level of alcohol drinking by older people. A new alcohol strategy is currently being developed and we will be considering what actions need to be taken to support all vulnerable groups. Officials will be engaging with stakeholders in the development of the strategy to identify and support these groups.

Data on those experiencing alcohol harm, broken down by age, is not collected centrally. However, national estimates of the number of alcohol dependent adults in 2014-15 were published by the University of Sheffield in March 2017. They estimated that the number of adults aged 55 or over dependent on alcohol was 73,280.

The Government has no plans to introduce a different intervention strategy aimed at older people. Local authorities are responsible for commissioning effective drug and alcohol prevention and treatment services based on an assessment of local need. Public Health England (PHE) supports local authorities in this work, by providing bespoke data, value for money tools, topical briefings, and advice on good practice to help local authorities meet the needs of their local population, including older people.

PHE is engaged in a series of work programmes which aim to reduce the incidence of substance addiction and help provide support to older people, such as advocating the national roll out of an alcohol misuse screening question that has been part of the NHS Health Check since 2013. The NHS Health Check is offered to around three million 40-74 year olds per year.

In addition, the United Kingdom Chief Medical Officers have produced new low risk drinking guidelines which provide the public with the latest information about the health risks of different levels and patterns of drinking. The guidelines enable people to make informed choices about their drinking. The UK Chief Medical Officers’ Low Risk Drinking Guidelines are attached.

The Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs has a statutory duty to monitor drug misuse in the United Kingdom and provide advice to Government on measures to address this. The Government has no plans to convene a separate advisory panel to develop substance misuse guidance focused specifically on older adults. In 2017, Public Health England updated clinical guidelines for clinicians treating people with drug use problems, which contains a section addressing the importance of preventing and treating drug use problems in older people. The guidelines were developed by an expert group and are kept under regular review. A copy of Drug misuse and dependence: UK guidelines on clinical management is attached.

The Government has not held discussions with the Welsh Government specifically on the benefits of its advisory panel on substance misuse.