About The Blue Light Approach

It was developed as a direct response to a culture of fatalism that frames entrenched alcohol dependency as a “lifestyle choice.” Too often, people living with entrenched alcohol dependency are written off as “unmotivated” toward change or “hard to reach.” The result is that too often they fall through the cracks, at immense cost to the individual and their families, and to our shared public services.

In any given local authority, there will be thousands of people who would benefit from interventions or treatment to reduce their drinking. However, the Blue Light Approach focuses on a much smaller group within this larger cohort: those with the most severe needs and the greatest impact on local resources.

Our suggested definition of those who might benefit the most from the Blue Light Approach typically includes people who:

• have long-standing alcohol dependence
• are not engaging with or benefiting from alcohol treatment
• are placing high or complex demand on public services (either directly or via the impact on others e.g. their family).

The scale and cost of this group is significant. Analysis has found that in a borough of 300,000 people, there will be at least 375 individuals meeting these criteria, costing local services a minimum of £18m per year. These figures underline why a targeted, persistent approach is essential - not only to build trust with the person to reduce harm but to relieve pressure on overstretched systems.

The Blue Light Approach starts from a simple truth: doing nothing is the worst option of all.

The Blue Light Approach isn’t about blaming services. Many are under-resourced, overburdened, and doing their best within rigid systems. But it is about challenging the belief that ‘nothing works’. Alcohol Change UK’s Blue Light Approach offers practical, realistic strategies to engage people who seem resistant or ambivalent - not by waiting for them to “hit rock bottom,” but by starting where they are. It focuses on harm reduction, assertive outreach, and multi-agency collaboration, underpinned by trauma-informed practice and professional curiosity.

This approach is not about blaming services. It’s about transforming systems.

The Blue Light Approach shows that:

• Progress is possible, even without initial motivation
• Costs to services can be reduced
• Risk and harm can be minimised
• People who are written off can stabilise – and even recover

It isn’t a magic solution. But it is a toolkit – built from front-line experience – for workers who are tired of watching the same people fall through the same cracks. Its main aim is to inspire us to think differently.

The Blue Light Approach’s guidance for practitioners includes:

• Tools for understanding why individuals may not engage
• Appropriately catered risk assessment tools
• Harm reduction techniques for use by a broad range of workers
• Practical techniques for frontline use, including guidance on crucial nutritional approaches
• Questions to help non-clinicians identify where individuals may be at risk of serious health problems
• Management frameworks
• Guidance on legal frameworks

The key elements of local transformation in adopting the Blue Light Approach are:

• Building strategic ownership of the need to improve care and support for people with entrenched alcohol dependency
• Training of specialist and non-alcohol specialist staff in the Blue Light approach
• Developing a multi-agency operational group to ensure joint identification and responsibility for individuals who are having the highest impact on local services
• Developing assertive outreach approaches by better designing and evaluating services
• Improving the response of local alcohol services through staff training and pathway development

Further, the Blue Light Approach develops responses that require minimal investment by:

• Using existing resources more effectively
• Bringing organisations together and refocusing what they do
• Building bridges with partners including police, housing and social care

Altogether, at its heart, the Blue Light Approach is built on persistence and partnership. It shows that change is possible - even for those written off as “beyond help.”

Two approaches have proven particularly useful with the Blue Light Approach’s client group:

• Assertive outreach
• Developing multi-agency groups that provide a focus on individuals with the highest needs

We have undertaken projects across the country to transform the local response to high-impact, high need drinkers. The key elements of the local transformation work are:

• Running senior level strategic workshops to establish understanding and ownership of the Blue Light Approach
• Training specialist and non-alcohol specialist staff in the Blue Light Approach
• Forging links with multi-agency operational groups to ensure joint management and a persistent targeted focus on the highest impact clients
• Developing the specialist alcohol service response to high impact drinkers with a clear and established pathway from non-specialist to specialist services
• Developing specifications for assertive outreach services and other identified unmet need
• Evaluation of the Blue Light Approach

A package of transformation work will typically cost £20,000 to £30,000 However, the return on this investment will be significant. Tackling the impact of just one such client can save enormous costs to the healthcare or criminal justice system.