Background

Alcohol is a major cause of death, injury and illness in Australia, accounting for more than 3,000 deaths and more than 72,000 hospital admissions each year.

Alcohol is a significant contributor to the occurrence of violence and crime. A large proportion of assaults, offensive behaviour, malicious damage to property and drink driving occur following excessive drinking at licensed premises such as hotels and registered clubs. The risk of harm arising from the consumption of alcohol on licensed premises can be reduced by modifying environmental, organisational and behavioural factors in relation to responsible service of alcohol initiatives for intoxicated and underage patrons, crowding, security staff and trading hours.

Auditing of licensed premises is an approach currently used by authorities to ensure compliance with licensing requirements. However, the audits do not focus on harm reduction, education or prevention. No controlled studies have reported the effectiveness of such an audit approach in reducing the risk of violence and crime emanating from hotels and registered clubs.

Aims and objectives

The Responsible Hospitality Service assesses the:

• Effectiveness of a Responsible Hospitality Audit and feedback intervention in:
  • Reducing service to pseudo-intoxicated patrons and pseudo-underage patrons.
  • Reducing alcohol-related crime associated with participating premises.
• Costs and licensee acceptability of the responsible hospitality audit and feedback intervention.

Implementation

The project will be undertaken in hotels, registered clubs and nightclubs in the Hunter New England and Manning Areas of NSW. Outcome data will be collected from observations undertaken by pseudo drunk and pseudo underage patrons at baseline and again 12 months following the completion of intervention delivery. Violence and crime incident data will be obtained for a 12-month period prior to the commencement of the study and compared to an equivalent 12-month period post intervention. Observations for intervention purposes will occur on a total of two occasions: at the start of the project then three months after the delivery of first intervention.

For each round of observations, an individualised feedback report will be generated for each premises in the intervention group based on the observation results. The reports will include a rationale and brief advice to support licensees in improving practices identified as being deficient. The report will be presented and discussed with licensees or managers during a face-to-face feedback visit.

Progress

Baseline data collection is complete and the first round of the intervention is underway.