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• A ten year strategy (Welsh Government, 2008) provides the framework for partner organisations in West Wales to tackle the harms associated with drug and alcohol misuse across four key themes;
• Preventing harm
• Support for those that misuse drugs and alcohol in order to improve their health and aid and maintain recovery
• Supporting and protecting families
• Tackling availability and protecting individuals and communities via enforcement
activity
• Thoseatriskofharmfromalcoholmisusecomefromacrossthespectrumofsociety.
They include chronic heavy drinkers, adults at home drinking hazardous or harmful levels and children and young adults who suffer from the consequences of parental alcohol misuse. The health impact of misuse of alcohol is considerable; more people die from alcohol related causes than from breast cancer, cervical cancer and MRSA infection combined. Foetal alcohol syndrome is also a risk to the babies of mothers who use alcohol. Most recent data on hospital admissions for Hywel Dda University Health Board show that over 5,000 bed days were taken up by patients with alcohol related conditions at a cost to the Health Board of over £5.2million per year in in-patient treatment alone
• Misuseofdrugs,bothlegalandillegal,andothermind-alteringsubstancessuchas solvents, can damage health in a variety of ways. These include fatal overdoses, addiction, mental health problems, infections caused by injecting and the toxic effects of the many substances that dealers mix with the active substance. Although the greatest harms are associated with the use of illicit drugs, the misuse of prescription only medicines and over the counter medicines continues to be a problem.
Gaps and areas for improvement in relation to substance misuse are listed on pages 170 - 171 of the main report.
Violence Against Women, Domestic Abuse and Sexual Violence
• Violence against women, domestic abuse and sexual violence is a fundamental violation of human rights, a cause and consequence of inequality and has far reaching consequences for families, children and society as a whole (Welsh Government, 2016)
• DomesticAbusecostsWales£303.5mannually.Thisincludes£202.6minservicecosts and £100.9m to lost economic output. If the emotional and human cost is factored in there are added costs of £522.9m (Walby, 2009 cited in Welsh Women’s Aid, n.d.)
• The cost, in both human and economic terms, is so significant that marginally effective interventions are cost effective (Welsh Government, 2016)
• New requirements under the Wellbeing of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015, (SSWB Act), and Violence Against Women, Domestic Violence and Sexual Abuse Act, 2015 impact this area and are likely to increase the number of cases of domestic abuse identified
West Wales Population Assessment March 2017 Executive Summary