Health Minister Roger Cook has revealed the WA Government is investigating ways to impose a minimum floor price on takeaway alcohol in a bid to curb alcohol-related harm.

The revelation came on Tuesday as the minister was being quizzed during a budget estimates hearing and spoke of alcohol abuse being "the elephant in the room".

Mr Cook said he had asked the Mental Health Commission and the Department of Health to investigate putting a minimum floor price on standard takeaway drinks.

There are no details on what the floor price would be set at or exactly how it would work, including how it would be enforced if introduced.

Under the program, which Mr Cook said was also being looked at in the United Kingdom and Canada, bottle shops would be required to sell units of alcohol at a specific price set by the Government.

Minister critical of cheap Aldi wine

"You've had recently an announcement by Aldi that they'll be looking to sell bottles of wine for as low as $2.78 each," Mr Cook said.

Aldi wants to sell wine for $2.78 a bottle. ( ABC: Charlie McKillop )

"That represents a significant threat to the public health of our community."

He said society needed to "get serious" about alcohol abuse.

"In 2014 one person was hospitalised for an alcohol attributable condition every 27 minutes, and there were 113,500 hospital bed days used in 2014 and 545 alcohol-related deaths in 2013," Mr Cook said.

He claimed a minimum floor price would act as a deterrent to people who were high volume, low cost consumers of alcohol and cause consumption rates to fall.

"You'll see hospital attendance avoided, you'll see alcohol-related crime reduce and you'll see a much greater benefit to our community," Mr Cook said.

"And it's not saying that we want a bigger tax. What we're saying is that we want a lower alcohol intake."

The Minister said until bottle shop sales were tackled, the Government would not be able to put downward pressure on health costs and other associated costs including policing, community safety and domestic violence.

'Alcohol causes huge harm': AMA

The Government is set to hold a preventative health summit early next year, bringing together up to 150 experts to focus on ways to tackle the strain alcohol-related harm places on the health system.

WA Australian Medical Association President Omar Khorshid has welcomed Mr Cook's comments, saying the lobby group supported a decent discussion on the introduction of a minimum floor price.

Dr Khorshid says low-cost alcohol is favoured by those with drinking problems. ( ABC News: Emily Piesse )

"Alcohol causes huge harm throughout Australia, through every part of our community and anything that can be done at a Government level to reduce consumption and particularly to reduce those harmful levels of consumption is going to be helpful for people's health," Dr Korshid said.

"There's good evidence that certainly amongst certain people their consumption of alcohol is price sensitive and it's expected that if there's a floor price that consumption will be reduced.

"And that's particularly those high alcohol, low cost options which are the types of alcohol that tend to be favoured by people with drinking problems."