We're not the National Hangover Service, NHS boss warns revellers

[Northerner]

The chief executive of NHS England has accused drunken revellers of being “frankly selfish” when they rely on the health service to help them and has indicated that more “drunk tanks” could be set up to keep intoxicated people out of overstretched accident and emergency wards.

Simon Stevens said the rollout of drunk tanks, sometimes in supervised buses or repurposed cafes, could be scaled up next year depending on their success this New Year’s Eve and the results of a national study on their impact due to be completed in the coming months.

Councils, ambulance services and police in Newcastle, Bristol, Manchester and Cardiff already provide areas where drunk people can be checked by health professionals and be supervised as they sleep off alcohol without having to go to hospital. There are believed to be about 16 drunk tanks operating in the UK, including two in Belfast. Some operate by trying to keep drunk people awake, while others let them sleep. The Bristol drunk tank is essentially a converted lorry kitted out with rows of wipe-clean beds staffed by paramedics.

https://www.theguardian.com/society...nal-hangover-service-nhs-boss-warns-revellers

 

[Amigo]

The chief executive of NHS England has accused drunken revellers of being “frankly selfish” when they rely on the health service to help them and has indicated that more “drunk tanks” could be set up to keep intoxicated people out of overstretched accident and emergency wards.

Simon Stevens said the rollout of drunk tanks, sometimes in supervised buses or repurposed cafes, could be scaled up next year depending on their success this New Year’s Eve and the results of a national study on their impact due to be completed in the coming months.

Councils, ambulance services and police in Newcastle, Bristol, Manchester and Cardiff already provide areas where drunk people can be checked by health professionals and be supervised as they sleep off alcohol without having to go to hospital. There are believed to be about 16 drunk tanks operating in the UK, including two in Belfast. Some operate by trying to keep drunk people awake, while others let them sleep. The Bristol drunk tank is essentially a converted lorry kitted out with rows of wipe-clean beds staffed by paramedics.

https://www.theguardian.com/society...nal-hangover-service-nhs-boss-warns-revellers

They should be charged heavily for this service. This isn’t what the Health Service is for and takes valuable resources from others.

I was once in an Urgent Care Centre and a woman with a bad hangover who stunk of alcohol was kicking up a fuss wanting to see a doctor!

 

[Northerner]

Strikes me as a good idea - as long as the staff can distinguish a drunk from an insulin user having a severe hypo! 🙂 A&E staff shouldn't have their time taken up by this sort of self-inflicted nonsense I wonder what they would get charged on a US system? I bet insurance wouldn't cover something like this.

 

[HOBIE]

Last time I was in A&E I was in at 4am. & 4 sets of Police looking after people on Drugs ? Life has changed 🙂

 

[Hepato-pancreato]

Sad the way things are. But once you start picking and choosing who gets treated, What is self inflicted ..Who decides that. A lot of people think type 2 diabetes is self inflicted. Some think all diabetes is self inflicted. Breaking a leg playing rugby is that self inflicted. The consequences are endless. By the way at source is where you apply the brakes to drinking. To serve someone intoxicated is illegal. Even from the Offy. No one upholds this law or you wouldn’t see people passed out in town centres.

 

[grovesy]

Sad the way things are. But once you start picking and choosing who gets treated, What is self inflicted ..Who decides that. A lot of people think type 2 diabetes is self inflicted. Some think all diabetes is self inflicted. Breaking a leg playing rugby is that self inflicted. The consequences are endless. By the way at source is where you apply the brakes to drinking. To serve someone intoxicated is illegal. Even from the Offy. No one upholds this law or you wouldn’t see people passed out in town centres.

My son works in a town centre Wetherspoons and their are people who are banned from all the pubs, but they go in threatening the staff and throwing things at them.

 

[HOBIE]

4 sets of Police in A&E. More than 8 at 4am ? If you rang the Police you would not expect them to say we are busy in A & E taking care of NHS staff & Patients. Sign of the times

 

[Northerner]

Sad the way things are. But once you start picking and choosing who gets treated, What is self inflicted ..Who decides that. A lot of people think type 2 diabetes is self inflicted. Some think all diabetes is self inflicted. Breaking a leg playing rugby is that self inflicted. The consequences are endless. By the way at source is where you apply the brakes to drinking. To serve someone intoxicated is illegal. Even from the Offy. No one upholds this law or you wouldn’t see people passed out in town centres.

I don't think its about who gets treated, it's about treating people appropriately - if they can be looked after in specialist units away from A&E then it makes a lot of sense.

 

[HOBIE]

4 sets of Police in A&E. More than 8 at 4am ? If you rang the Police you would not expect them to say we are busy in A & E taking care of NHS staff & Patients. Sign of the times

If you say that is happening all over the country in a lot of towns & city ctrs. Its a problem

 

[mikeyB]

The problem is cheap alcohol. Alcohol has been getting cheaper relative to average income for a couple of decades now. And drinks, particularly wine, have much higher alcohol content than they used to. Supermarkets sell packs of beer at loss-leading prices, though not in Scotland from next year.

There, alcohol won’t be sold at anything less than 50p per unit of alcohol. A litre of strong cider will go up from around £3 to over £7. it will be interesting to see how that plays out, because if it works in Scotland, England will surely follow - they don’t want all the Scottish drunks tooling down to Carlisle for booze.