End the delivery trap

Ordering alcohol has never been easier. With just a few taps, it can be at your door in minutes.

Services like Uber Eats, Tesco Whoosh, and Deliveroo have changed how we buy and consume alcohol. But the speed and convenience mean the systems designed to keep people safe are not always keeping up.

Rapid delivery can make it easier to:

• Keep drinking alcohol when you might otherwise stop
• Order more alcohol in the moment, including after you have already been drinking
• Access alcohol without the same safeguards you would expect in person (like age and intoxication checks)

At the same time, rapid alcohol deliveries are making it harder to cut back, when we want to.

These issues are causing real damage, now - particularly making things worse for people whose drinking is creeping up, are at risk of alcohol-dependency, or are struggling with a journey of recovery.

This is not a niche issue:

• 1 in 5 people (22%) use rapid delivery services to order alcohol at least weekly
• Around 3 million people are worried about someone else’s increase in alcohol consumption because of rapid deliveries
• Those at an increasing or high risk of alcohol harm are more likely to use rapid delivery services weekly than those at low risk (43% compared with 19%)

This is not about blaming individuals. It is about making sure the systems around us support us all to live healthier, happier lives.

We are calling on the Government to introduce practical, proportionate safeguards that help people stay in control and reduce avoidable harm:

• Robust age verification and intoxication checks – both at point of ordering and point of delivery, with delivery drivers given enough training, time and support to carry these out.
• Make it easier for individuals, and their family members, to ‘block’ their own access to ordering alcohol on delivery services like apps and supermarket accounts – just like existing gambling blocks, these need to be robust and not easy to over-turn.
• Introduce a ‘pause’ – enable a generous pause between ordering and delivery of alcohol, when the order is over a certain amount.
• Limit the hours alcohol can be delivered directly to your home – for example between 10am and 10pm.

These are simple steps that support informed choices and help prevent harm before it happens.

Rapid deliveries are fuelling alcohol-related harm.

Together, we can support thousands of people by getting this issue onto the Government’s to-do list and fixing rapid delivery services in the UK.