The Alcohol Advisory Council would like to see emergency departments routinely recording the number of patients presenting with alcohol-related injuries to help show the size of the problem.
Chief executive Gerard Vaughan said yesterday such figures could then be used to see how effective any changes to the availability of alcohol were.
He was commenting on a report in the Otago Daily Times yesterday in which Dunedin Hospital emergency department consultant Dr John Chambers linked extended opening hours to an increase in the number of people attending the department with injuries following alcohol consumption.
Dr Chambers suggested closing bars at 2am would lower the number of people injured in random fights.
The department is one of many in the country which do not systematically record incidents in which alcohol has been a factor.
Mr Vaughan said if figures were kept, they could be made available to general practitioners, who could then be advised when one of their patients was involved with an alcohol-related injury or accident.
"There would then be the opportunity for the GP to administer a brief intervention by questioning their patient about their alcohol consumption."
There were ways of recording the information in such a way that the level of intoxication was indicated.
Mr Vaughan said the council was one of many bodies wanting better information and data collection around alcohol use.
