Last updated at 13:55, Tuesday, 20 March 2012

Doctors should routinely quiz their patients about drinking habits, say MPs.

Having a pint

What are they trying to do, keep people away from surgeries?

All very worrying, this government drive into social engineering and life controlling. MPs now think it is their business to dictate what we eat, how much we drink, whether we smoke, what our children should be eating for lunch and – via Mr Cameron’s favourite retail guru Mary Portas – where we should be doing our shopping.

Politicians say GP intrusion is vital to prevent an escalation of health problems from excessive drinking.

Anyone identified as a “risky drinker” – someone who regularly consumes more than the Government prescribed weekly limit – would be sent on an intervention course with a doctor or nurse and given advice about how to cut down.

Don’t doctors and nurses have enough to do dealing with colds, man-flu, signing off sickies and identifying genuine illness without having to interrogate their patients on lifestyle choices too?

And what patient wants to face a third degree interview about how much they eat and drink when they pitch up at the doc’s with a cough and a sore throat?

Cross-party MPs believe it necessary to focus on “risky drinkers” who fall below the radar, because too much emphasis has been placed on teenage or binge drinking.

Almost a quarter of the population falls into the “risky” category of tipplers who indulge just a tad too often.

Factor out doctors under pressure and MPs in their subsidised Commons bars and you can bet the figure would be much lower.

First published at 11:24, Tuesday, 20 March 2012
Published by http://www.newsandstar.co.uk