Can you provide an update on the plans of London’s NHS to identify and recommend early adopter sites to receive additional funding to develop their Alcohol Care Teams in London’s hospitals?

As I do not have either powers or responsibility for the commissioning or provision of health or care services to support people affected by alcohol misuse, my officers approached the NHS and Office for Health Improvement and Disparities (OHID) for a response.

Information provided by NHSE London and OHID showed that those hospitals with the highest rate of alcohol dependence-related admissions are being supported to fully establish Alcohol Care Teams (ACTs) using funding from their Integrated Care Board’s (ICB’s) health inequalities funding supplement, working in partnership with local authority commissioners of drug and alcohol services. OHID (London) and NHSE (London) ran an audit and data process to identify early adopters which included levels of alcohol harm and current capacity of ACTs.

In the 2020/21 Wave 1 roll-out, one early implementer ACT site per region was identified for additional NHSE funding, Ealing hospital was the London site chosen.

In April 2021 a 2nd wave of sites were chosen against a combined metric of CCG level deprivation and alcohol specific mortality. These are

King’s College Hospital, Homerton University Hospital, The Royal London Hospital and University Hospital Lewisham.