Get real about drunks

A report in today’s Daily Mail suggests that A&E staff, paramedics and police officers are spending a quarter of their time dealing with drunks.

Medics and paramedics express frustration that drunken revellers take priority over people who are ill at home. And they complain about the drunks’ behaviour:

More than three-quarters of police officers (76 per cent) surveyed had been injured by drunks and just over half of paramedics (52 per cent) had been sexually harassed….

Consultants said drunks often take six hours ‘to deal with’ and roam the corridors, smash equipment and upset other patients.

Of course they are calling for government to do something:

The Government needs to take a tougher stance on the availability of cheap alcohol and do more to protect our emergency services.

So, on top of a sugar tax, the nannies want some sort of alcohol tax? Why should the orderly majority of drinkers be disadvantaged because of the disorderly few?

And in any case these disorderly few aren’t spilling out drunk from their own homes. They are spilling out drunk from pubs and clubs – where drink is dear anyway. So it doesn’t seem they are price sensitive.

But who sets these priorities locally? Who says drunks must have priority for ambulances? Why are drunks who rampage in hospitals not always prosecuted, and punished appropriately?

We need local pilot schemes sharpish. (Though the state sector doesn’t do “sharpish”.) The report “urge(s) the Government to roll out ‘drunk tanks’ in towns and cities – mobile units where revellers can sober up – to avoid them having to go to A&E or police cells”.

If local autonomy means anything, why can’t local police do this now? If a publicity campaign told local people that drunks were a factor in long waits at A&E, they would support this. And why shouldn’t you have to pay for treatment if you’re drunk? For sure it may be rough justice in a few cases. But then an innocent man targeted by the bully Tom Watson as a sexual offender paid £60,000 for his legal representation.

We need Affordable Government, and taxpayers cannot afford to give drunks a free ride.

We don’t need to “get tough”, but let’s get real. Trial drunk tanks, prosecute hospital rampagers, give them meaningful sentences, prioritise ambulances for vulnerable people who have fallen at home, and let drunks wait in the rain.

Is there no will among state workers for anyone to take any responsibility for change?