An Evaluation of the Alcohol Treatment Recovery Centre (ARC) in Belfast Trust

Binge drinking accounts for up to 70% of weekend attendances at UK Emergency Departments (ED). A 2014 Trust-wide alcohol screening audit of over 1000 ED attendees confirmed 49% were drinking to harmful levels, whilst 22% were potentially dependent drinkers. Northern Ireland has seen alcohol-related harms such as liver disease steadily rising and alcohol-related hospital admissions increasing by 61% between 2000/01 and 2009/10, with a further rise since 2011/12. In 2014 there were 59 reported physical assaults of staff members in Belfast Trust Emergency Departments with alcohol or drugs contributing to the majority of these.
The mixed methods research evaluation addressed four research questions:
1. What is the impact of ARCs on the work practices and professional identities of frontline staff in managing the intoxicated and other related work activities?

2. What are the key ingredients required for successful implementation and what barriers to implementation exist across partnerships?

3. What is the impact of ARCs on working practices of front-line professionals in the emergency care system?


4. What are ARC patient views on the initiative?
The study used four primary research tools to gather data and thereby respond to the objectives as outlined above; an analysis of case notes from the ARC together with an analysis of the ED data, a series of semi structured interviews with stakeholders, operational partners (police, paramedic staff and medical staff), a short likert style questionnaire to a sample of ARC users and a series of non-participant observation of interaction between medical staff, PSNI and paramedic staff and patients who are attend the ARC unit.