In the north-east we are particularly concerned by the devastating impact of young people drinking alcohol. The recently published Local Alcohol Profiles for England showed that the north-east continues to have the highest rate of under-18s admitted to hospital with alcohol-specific conditions, and it is clear that "early onset" drinking is having a dire impact on our children and young people's health.
As Dr Wollaston's private member's bill acknowledges, youth culture is heavily influenced by marketing and our children are saturated by alcohol advertising. The Academy of Medical Sciences report Calling Time showed a consistent correlation between consumption levels among 11- to 15-year-olds and the amount spent on alcohol marketing – £800m per year according to recent estimates. If alcohol advertising did not work, the industry would not pay for it, and we are gravely concerned about the impact this is having on the health and wellbeing of our nation's children.
Equally worryingly, the European School Survey showed our children have the most positive expectations of alcohol of any children in Europe and they were least likely to feel it might harm them. Such expectations clearly derive from alcohol marketing and, as the World Health Organisation recently stated: "In such a profoundly pro-drinking environment, health education becomes futile."
The health select committee report published earlier this year highlighted the fact that: 96% of 13-year-olds from a sample of 920 were aware of alcohol advertising in at least five different media; 91%-95% were able to identify masked alcohol brands. Nearly half owned alcohol-branded products, such as clothing. These findings are clearly shocking and it is time that the government and the alcohol industry took some responsibility for the issues facing our children and put their welfare first.
Chris Record Liver specialist at Newcastle University and Newcastle hospitals
James Crosbie Consultant gastroenterologist, City Hospitals Sunderland
Kate Lambert Consultant in emergency medicine, City Hospitals Sunderland
Deborah Smith Alcohol liaison nurse specialist, City Hospitals Sunderland
Richard Thomas Consultant gastroenterologist at North Tees and Hartlepool NHS Foundation Trust
Anjan Dhar Consultant gastroenterologist at Darlington Memorial and Bishop Auckland hospital
• The UK government has chosen to address obesity and alcohol problems increasingly through collaboration with business. We recently explored the "healthy eating option" on the NHS Choices website, which provides an example of how an existing public-private partnership works in practice, and were surprised to be offered bargain buys on fairy cakes, peanuts, all-butter croissants and chocolate crisp brioche (among others).
Having chosen the "make your weekly shop healthier" option, we were directed by the link on this NHS website to the "supermarket health checker" on mysupermarket.co.uk. Clicking on the link required registration and agreeing with 10 pages of terms and conditions, one of which stated in relation to the health content information: "We do not warrant that such information is true or accurate", begging the question whether the information is any use at all. Leaving aside this potential pitfall one arrives – if not distracted by the "wine store" where you can save up to 50% on your wine shopping (and we thought that the most effective public health intervention for alcohol was price rises) – at the front page of mysupermarket.co.uk. The website opens to the special offers section, where we were presented with the plethora of calorie-rich but nutrient-poor options identified above. There was little healthy food on view at all.
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