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Alcohol Screening

What is a unit of alcohol?

United Kingdom

Helping patients understand how much alcohol they are consuming is important and using units is a simpler way to express a drink’s alcohol content than by the standard measure of alcohol by volume (ABV).

The simple calculation for how many units are in a drink is:1

Strength (ABV) x Volume (ml) / 1,000 = units

Republic of Ireland2

The Republic of Ireland measuring system differs from the UK in several ways:

  • Instead of Units, they are referred to as Standard Drinks.
  • A Standard Drink is equal to 10g of pure alcohol (in the UK it is 8g).
  • It is based around the standard measures in pubs or pre-bottled drinks.
  • Home measures may be more generous than this and are therefore harder to calculate.

For more information, please click here.

Examples of how alcohol is measured1,2

For Northern Ireland:

The calculation of units in Northern Ireland is the same as for the rest of the UK, however a standard single small shot of spirits in NI is larger than in the rest of the UK, at 35.5ml rather than 25ml, meaning it equates to more units e.g. a single small shot of spirts (35.5ml, ABV* 40%) is 1.4 units.

NHS (UK) and HSE (Republic of Ireland) guidelines

For the UK, the NHS recommends:1

  • Men and women are advised not to regularly drink more than 14 units in a week.
  • Ideally spread over 3 days or more if 14 units a week are consumed.

HSE low risk weekly guidelines for adults:2

For the Republic of Ireland, the HSE recommends:

  • Per week, up to 11 standard drinks for women and 17 standard drinks for men.
  • Drinks should be spaced out over the week, with two to three alcohol free days.

Tracking units

There are a number of ways that alcohol units can be tracked:

  • Online or digital calculators such as the Drink Aware tracking tool or the One You Drink Free Days from Public Health England.
  • Using a screening tool such as AUDIT-C to assess units consumed. Visit the Audit & Audit-C page to find out more.

Unit tracking resources - NHS Alcohol Units App

The One You Drink Free Days from Public Health England allows patients to pick days to skip alcohol and access practical support to stick with it.

To access the app, search 'Drink Free Days' via apple store or google play.

Try Dry, an app created to track your patients’ drinking allowing them to take time off, which was created by Alcohol Change to help people reach their goals in Dry January.

To access the app, search 'Try Dry' via apple store or google play.

Contents

Average:

  • References

    1. Alcohol units. Available from: https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/alcohol-support/calculating-alcohol-units/ Last accessed June 2023.

    2. Weekly low-risk alcohol guidelines. https://www2.hse.ie/wellbeing/alcohol/improve-your-health/weekly-low-risk-alcohol-guidelines.html Last accessed June 2023.

    KKI/GB/PAB/0270 November 2023