NHS Health Scotland

Background to the alcohol tools


The Outcomes Framework for Alcohol was developed as part of work to inform the Scottish Government's consultation document, Changing Scotland's Relationship with Alcohol and the following Framework for Action. The logic models have been used as the basis for a monitoring and evaluation framework for the alcohol strategy.

What criteria did we use to build the logic models?

Evidence and/or evidence- informed recommendations and suggested actions have been drawn primarily from six key alcohol related sources:

 1. NHS Health Scotland Commentaries/Scottish Perspectives on National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) public health guidance.

2. NICE and Health Development Agency (HDA) public health briefings.

3. Scottish Intercollegiate Guidelines Network (SIGN) clinical guidelines.

4. Publications from the World Health Organization.

 We have called this information ‘highly-processed evidence’. Additional sources of evidence and theory have been drawn from relevant key systematic reviews and, reviews and reports commissioned by the Scottish Government, the UK Government and national organisations and collaborators.

 The National Performance Framework, and the Menu of Local Outcome Indicators, published in the Improvement Service Menu of Local Outcome Indicatiors, both have strategic outcomes related to reducing alcohol-related harm. These include reducing alcohol-related hospital admissions, and reducing deaths from alcohol-related diseases. The purpose of these tools is to help identify effective partner contributions that will help achieve these strategic outcomes.

These tools formed part of the information used by the Outcomes Sub-Group of the Delivery Reform Group*, in their work to develop an outcomes ‘toolkit’ for drug and alcohol services. Version 1 of the toolkit, “Delivering Better Outcomes: An Outcomes Toolkit for Alcohol and Drugs Partnerships” is available on the Scottish Government website.

Information on possible indicators to use to monitor alcohol-related outcomes will be integrated into this outcomes framework during 2010/11.

*set up by the Scottish Advisory Committee on Drugs Misuse, and the Scottish Ministerial Advisory Committee on Alcohol Problems.