Health Security
28 December 2014 Last
updated at 06:49 GMT
Police should target troublesome drunks, A&E boss
says
Police
should crack down on binge drinking to stop hospital staff becoming distracted
by disorderly drunks, a leading doctor has said.
Dr
Clifford Mann, president of the College of Emergency Medicine, said a
"softer approach" adopted by police "doesn't seem to be
working".
A&E
staff have to deal with disorderly patients on a "daily" basis, he
added.
Dr
Mann said police could deal with anti-social drunkenness with increased
arrests, convictions and fines.
Speaking
to the BBC, Dr Mann said intoxicated patients could be arrested for being drunk
and disorderly if they cause problems in hospitals.
"All
I am saying at the moment is the softer approach - where we don't any longer
arrest many people for being drunk and disorderly - certainly doesn't seem to
be working," he said.
Dr
Mann said the number of people arriving at A&E units while drunk was
increasing year on year, while the number of licensed premises in the UK was
also increasing and alcohol was getting cheaper.
"I
think these people, by the nature of the disorder, they are distracting medical
and nursing staff from looking after other patients and therefore are wasting
public resources.
"I
think they therefore fall into the category of being drunk and disorderly in
their behaviour and the police can act to take them away," he added.
'Too simplistic'
In a separate
interview with the Observer, Dr Mann said that if
more people knew that if they got drunk they would be arrested, then fewer
would drink too much in the first place.
There
is "far too much acceptance" that drunkenness is "normal for a
Friday or Saturday night", he said, adding: "It's not normal. It shouldn't be normal."
Responding
to Dr Mann, the Police Federation of England and Wales told the Observer the
suggestion was "simplistic" and would lead to an unrealistic drain on
police time.
"Forces
up and down the country regularly have campaigns to tackle drunk and disorderly
behaviour," the chairman of the Police Federation - which represents rank
and file officers - Steve White said.
"Alcohol
is well known to be a contributory factor in incidents of disorder but it is a
complex issue and a crackdown on troublesome drunks is too simplistic an
answer," he added.
He
said "hauling people through the courts isn't always the answer
either".
"That
takes valuable time and resources to process, not just for the police, but also
as people go through the courts and criminal justice system."
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