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• NHS Dumfries and Galloway
• East Ayrshire ADP
• NHS Forth Valley
• NHS Grampian
• NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde
• NHS Lanarkshire
• NHS Lothian
• West Lothian TADP

NHS Dumfries and Galloway

For information about the overall approach to delivery of ABI in NHS Dumfries and Galloway, email Lorrain Hyland: lhyland@nhs.net

Private Sector: Occupational Health

The occupational health nurses working at a large, local engineering business, were trained to undertake ABI screening as part of their staff health assessments and deliver ABIs. This was in addition to raising awareness, providing factual information and arranging follow up.
They were supported by the Occupational Health Department working in partnership to engage with the screening process and assessment for Healthy Working Lives.
Contact: Elaine Lamont, Public Health Practitioner.
elamont@nhs.net

Community: Summerhill Community Centre

The Health Improvement (HI) Team has strong links with this centre, which is in a deprived area. Young people attend either a dance session or a boxercise session at the centre and the Youth Development Co-ordinator agreed that staff from the HI team could disseminate information in an opportunistic fashion to inform and raise awareness and deliver ABIs as appropriate. The centre is very proactive and the partnership has worked well.
Contact: Tina Gibson, Public Health Practitioner.
Tina.gibson@nhs.net

Community: North West Resource Centre

The Building Healthy Communities team and the Health Improvement (HI) team worked in partnership to inform and raise awareness of alcohol consumption. The (HI) team disseminates information,conducting ABI screening and delivery in an opportunistic fashion as appropriate, on anonymous forms.
This started in December 2010 when people were talking about going on nights out and involved an established group who met for weight management and healthy living sessions.
Contact: Tina Gibson, Public Health Practitioner.
Tina.gibson@nhs.net

Community: Health and Homeless group

Many of the people attending the Health and Homeless group have issues surrounding alcohol. This group was happy for the Health Improvement team to deliver alcohol awareness information in an opportunistic fashion and carry out pertinent ABIs, ensuring anonymity. All attendees discuss and drink alcohol, but the information needed to be current and simple, to keep the exchanges positive as getting people to engage with alcohol awareness can be challenging.
Contact: Tina Gibson, Public Health Practitioner.
Tina.gibson@nhs.net

Community (employer): Gates Power Transmission Factory

The factory carries out alcohol screening as part of its health and safety programme but after discussion between the occupational health advisor at the factory and the NHS Health Improvement team, a more focused delivery was established on a monthly basis to inform and raise awareness of alcohol issues, including opportunistic screening and delivery of ABIs where appropriate.
Staff are aware that they will be asked about alcohol consumption as part of factory procedures but
it can be difficult to engage people in the work environment who do consume alcohol because they do not always want to give information about their usage.
Contact: Tina Gibson, Public Health Practitioner.
Tina.gibson@nhs.net

Community: Home Support Centre, Lochside

Following discussion between Home Support Service workers and the Health Improvement Team, this service aims to inform and raise awareness and disseminate information in an opportunistic fashion to young parents who visit the centre for support.
During this time families build up a rapport with the home support worker and this helps with alcohol screening and raising awareness. The young people have developed trust in the people delivering ABIs, so will speak openly about issues surrounding alcohol, but it does take time to build up this rapport and trust between parents and support workers.
Contact: Tina Gibson, Public Health Practitioner.
Tina.gibson@nhs.net

Leisure services: Men's Health

Men are a hard to reach group because they tend not to visit their GP, therefore, we delivered information in a male-friendly setting. A partnership approach was developed with Healthy Working Lives and Sports and Leisure, using one of their buildings to offer men’s health checks at gym induction sessions and part of this assessment included alcohol consumption screening. The aim is to illustrate the link between alcohol consumption and health issues,resulting in the men becoming better informed, in addition to providing a list of services to contact if they needed help.
Contact: Elaine Lamont, Public Health Practitioner.
elamont@nhs.net

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East Ayrshire Alcohol and Drug Partnership (ADP)

For information about the overall approach to delivery of ABI in East Ayrshire Alcohol and Drug Partnership, email Liam Wells: liam.wells@east-ayrshire.gov.uk

East Ayrshire Council - Community Health Improvement Partnership

The Council’s Community Health Improvement Partnership (CHIP) Team deliver formal and informal interventions targeting adults and older people. ABIs are delivered where appropriate and recorded through the Activity on Prescription (AoP) scheme, during CHIP Van visits to East Ayrshire Communities and within supported accommodation units. This is part of an overall strategy in East Ayrshire to improve health and wellbeing in the older population while also increasing their resilience and capacity.
Contact: Angie Bennett, Leisure Development Manager.
Angie.Bennett@east-ayrshire.gsx.gov.uk

NHS Forth Valley

For information about the overall approach to delivery of ABI in NHS Forth Valley, email Theresa Martinus: theresa.martinus@nhs.net

Housing: Men's Health

Forth Valley Alcohol and Drug Partnership (FVADP) support ABI training and recognised the importance of increasing workforce competence in the area of substance misuse. Staff have highlighted the impact that alcohol has on the clients they deal with. The aim is to reduce alcohol fuelled anti-social behaviour, and reduce tenancy turnover and homelessness.
Developing our data collection systems requires further planning with partners.
Contact: Theresa Martinus, ABI Lead.
theresa.martinus@nhs.net

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NHS Grampian

For information about the overall approach to delivery of ABI in NHS Grampian, email Cathy Young: cathyyoung@nhs.net

Private sector - Occupational health team

The service is delivered by the Occupational Health medical staff in a private company through their own in-house health screening service. The need for this was established through awareness-raising sessions delivered through the Healthy Working Lives network, and the ABI training was provided by the NHS with opportunistic screening, delivery of ABIs and follow-up being undertaken.
This service will test the suitability of the ABI training package for adaptation in the workplace setting. Staff have fed back that they have greater confidence in use of tools and delivery of interventions and there is a willingness to engage around alcohol, but there is a lack of evidence-based practice within workplace settings.
Contact: Fraser Hoggan, ADP Support Team.
fraser.hoggan@nhs.net

Further education - university

Discussions with university welfare staff about issues around both alcohol and drugs within the student population highlighted a need for developing this service, to ensure that student welfare policy covers alcohol issues, appropriate alcohol screening and advice. Where appropriate, brief interventions should then follow.
The University staff are willing to address alcohol issues and the support services within university residences gave capacity to provide more input for student welfare across health and wellbeing topics such as drugs, sexual health and alcohol.
Cultural issues are the main challenge. Many of those trained are from a variety of nationalities and ethnic backgrounds, so training had to be adapted, with more emphasis placed on attitudes to alcohol use and local context.
Contact: Fraser Hoggan, ADP Support Team.
fraser.hoggan@nhs.net

Community learning and development

The provision of ABI training here is opportunistic, and used in the first instance as a way to engage with the Community Learning and Development project staff who previously had little opportunity to complete alcohol training. It offered an opportunity for staff to then engage with their client group more appropriately with alcohol issues. It had been highlighted that the numbers of individuals disclosing alcohol use was high and that support for this client group was required.
Staff were willing to become involved, recognising that alcohol is an issue and a barrier, and understood their role in helping to address the issue.
Contact: Fraser Hoggan, ADP Support Team.
fraser.hoggan@nhs.net

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NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde

For information about the overall approach to ABI delivery in NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde, email Paul Rimmer: paul.rimmer@glasgow.gov.uk

South Glasgow CHP

We identified groups of staff who were ideally placed to address the role of alcohol within their workplace and trained the following groups:

• Social Work and social care for children and families to identify and address the role of alcohol where there are child care concerns.
• Family Addiction Support Services and volunteers from the South East Glasgow Recovery Aftercare Group.
• Community Fire-fighters from Strathclyde Fire and Rescue and Community Safety Officers from Glasgow Community Safety Services.
• Housing Officers from the Southside Housing Association and Support Workers from SAMH, Simon Community, Carr Gomm and the Mungo Foundation Community Alcohol Support Service to identify and address the role of alcohol in housing issues.

The staff undertake opportunistic screening and delivery of ABIs within the above groups with planned screening and delivery of ABI also occurring in Social Work and social care for children and families.
Contact: Lee Craig, Health Improvement Practitioner.
Lee.Craig@ggc.scot.nhs.uk

Inverclyde: Outreach home visit service

During a home visit, the outreach worker discusses the health check and health services that are available for the client, particularly if the client discloses any challenges with alcohol or said they used it for stress relief. We aim to raise awareness with clients of safe drinking limits and where relevant to refer onto their GP / Integrated Alcohol Services. This fits well with Keep Well outreach service and we now undertake opportunistic screening, delivery of ABI and follow-up.
Contact: Margaret Williams, Outreach Worker.
margaret.williams5@ggc.scot.nhs.uk

Inverclyde: Community employability groups

The Alcohol Information Worker from the Healthier Inverclyde Project delivers alcohol education/awareness sessions to community employability groups and now delivers planned screening, delivery of ABI and follow-up in this setting to meet an actual demand. Through this work personal disclosures about problematic alcohol use were being made, highlighting the need for some sort of alcohol assessment and intervention as education was not completely addressing the problems that some people were experiencing. On the whole this has been a great success.
As it is a planned rather than opportunistic approach the time factor can be a challenge, but as the worker now has specific targets around ABI’s this justifies the time that can be spent offering ABI.
Contact: Joe Pearce, Alcohol Information Worker.
joe.pearce2@inverclyde.gov.uk

Inverclyde: Community venues and workplace sites

Alcohol information workers from the Drink Safe Inverclyde initiative engage with community members in various settings and with employees at various workplace sites. Their role is to raise awareness of alcohol issues and create awareness of drinking behaviours. The aim is for early intervention to change attitudes and behaviour and opportunistically screen and deliver ABI, while also signposting and referring where appropriate to support services.
Inverclyde Integrated Alcohol Services through the Inverclyde Alliance funded project is supported by Inverclyde Council, but at present the challenge is the staff numbers required to meet the demand.
Contact: Bernie McIntyre, Inverclyde Integrated Alcohol Service.
bernie.mcintyre@Inverclyde.gov.uk

Inverclyde: homeless unit

ABI delivery in this setting is part of a package of measures to address health issues and support people with their tenancy and other difficulties. 90% of service users claimed to know little about alcohol and its effects and it was felt appropriate to implement early interventions to identify hazardous drinkers who often show no signs or symptoms of alcohol misuse.
Knowledge that those within the homelessness setting have a higher risk of future health or social problems due to higher alcohol consumption supported our decision to offer opportunistic screening & delivery of ABI. Although this is still at an early stage of development, obtaining the support and cooperation of others can be problematic.
Contact: Mark Stephenson, Inverclyde Integrated Alcohol Service.
mark.stephenson@inverclyde.gov.uk

West Dunbartonshire: Live Active counsellors

This was initially a pilot project working with the Live Active Advisor from West Dunbartonshire Council (GP Exercise Referral Scheme) to establish what the uptake and success would be when deliving ABIs in a leisure setting. We were looking for opportunities to increase the settings where alcohol consumption was discussed as part of the Keep Well Wave 2 Secondary Prevention implementation in West Dunbartonshire. An evaluation report has been completed and we are now identifying how to mainstream further delivery for planned screening, delivery of ABI and follow-up.
Contact: Ailsa King, Health Improvement Lead.
Ailsa.King2@ggc.scot.nhs.uk

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NHS Lanarkshire

For information about the overall approach to ABI delivery in NHS Lanarkshire, email Valerie Tallon: valerie.tallon@lanarkshire.scot.nhs.uk

Community and voluntary sector - Alcohol Counselling Team, North Lanarkshire

ABI screening and delivery was felt to be an appropriate part of our assessment procedure to enable service users to have an awareness of their alcohol use.
Some individuals felt that as we are an alcohol service, with mainly self-referrals, that those attending already know they have alcohol issues, and what they wanted and needed to do about it, but service users like the screening tool and staff carrying out assessments have found the ABIs a useful way to open the conversation in a structured way and undertake planned screening and delivery of ABIs.
Contact: Carol Lightfoot, Alcohol Counselling Team.
carol.lightfoot@btconnect.com

Alcohol counselling - Adult Services

Liber8 is an alcohol counselling agency whose counsellors are trained to undertake ABI screening and delivery. It is hoped that interventions in this setting will result in a reduction in alcohol use for the client and in turn a better and safer family life and community. Planned screening and delivery of ABIs is undertaken and is supported and encouraged by Lanarkshire ADP and fellow partners, but ensuring all data is captured in a busy setting is challenging.
Contact:James Lannigan, Liber8 Lanarkshire Ltd.
jlannigan@liber8.org.uk

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NHS Lothian

For information about the overall approach to delivery of ABI in NHS Lothian, email Jamie Megaw: jamie.megaw@nhslothian.scot.nhs.uk

Fire and Safety

Statistics showing links between fire incidents and fatalaties in the Lothian area where alcohol has played a contributory part has led to developing this new service in 2011. Community Fire and Safety Officers have been trained to undertake opportunistic screening and delivery of ABIs where appropriate and this new service has been supported by senior officers within the Fire and Safety service.
Contact: Eleanor McWhirter, ABI Lead.
Eleanor.McWhirter@nhslothian.scot.nhs.uk

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West Lothian Tobacco, Alcohol and Drug Partnership (TADP)

For information about the overall approach to delivery of ABI in West Lothian TADP, email David Williams: david.williams@westlothian.gov.uk

Community Planning Partnership (CPP): Housing/Housing support, Social Work, Police, Youth work and miscellaneous others

Our ABI training is open to all local workers across the CPP and we have allowed any relevant worker to apply. The training has consistently been over prescribed and there has been extremely positive feedback from participants, however, we have only recently begun collating data on the client groups served by workers attending training.
We adopted this early and have a lot of buy-in from local organisations and the local community planning partnership. The programme used was developed jointly between the local training agency and STRADA (Scottish Training on Drugs and Alcohol) and has been very well received. It is now delivered jointly by the local trainers and the Health Board team who train for clinical ABIs.
Demonstrating impact in a context of uncertainty about the evidence base remains a challenge.
Contact: David Williams, Policy Officer.
david.williams@westlothian.gov.uk

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