FIVE thousand people in the region have now been given advice on their drink problem as part of a major research project.

The North-East is one of three areas where people who are either endangering their health or getting into trouble with the police because of their drinking are being given advice by a doctor, nurse or probation officer.

Professor Eileen Kaner of Newcastle University, who is joint leader of the national study, said drinkers who have received advice about the link between heavy drinking and their behaviour, are being followed up to see if it has made a difference.

If there is evidence that brief advice has changed people’s behaviour, this could be adopted nationally as a way of reducing the harm caused by excessive alcohol consumption.

Prof Kaner, who was a speaker at the international Inebria alcohol conference at the Baltic in Gateshead last weekend, said: "We have finished a big trial which has recruited 5,000 people across the North-East. We already know that brief interventions delivered by a doctor or nurse works, what we want to know is whether this has a similar benefit in A&E and in the probation service."

Prof Kaner said she had recently completed a big review of international brief advice trials which involved more than 7,000 people.

"It shows very consistently that if people’s heavy drinking is identified at an early point, just five minutes advice can help cut their drinking down."

Prof Kaner, who chairs a National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice) group which is working on ways to reduce the harm that alcohol is having on adolescents and adults, said there was "a great need" to reduce heavy drinking in the UK.

"Around the country around one in four are negatively affected in some way by drink. It is more like one in three in some parts of the North-East," she added.

She urged everyone to stick to the national recommended weekly limits of 21 units for men and 14 for women.