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WAKE-UP CALL
If funding for cancer prevention,
treatment and recovery support was
being cut while cancer mortality rates
were rising there would be a national
uproar, yet funding for the treatment
of substance use disorders is being
cut at a time when alcohol and other
drug-related deaths are increasing.
The recently published
Review of
drug and alcohol commissioning
from
the Association of Directors of Public
Health and Public Health England
revealed that 48 local authorities in
England will be reducing funding for
drug and alcohol services either
during 2014/5 or 2015/6, and 12
local authorities during both years. A
further ten local authorities may
reduce funding in 2015/6 dependent
on local reviews and another 57 have
not yet made a decision.
A third of local authorities reported
uncertainty about future funding of
residential services and some also
reported ‘little need for alcohol and
drug services for young people’. The
Association of Directors of Public
Health has even attempted to spin a
positive narrative around this
disinvestment in the report.
After 2015/6 the public health
grant in England will no longer be ring-
fenced and cash-strapped local
authorities will be free to spend the
money on anything they wish. There is
no statutory requirement for them to
spend it on evidence-based
prevention, treatment and recovery
support interventions for substance
use as there is for cancer, and they
need to be funded in the same way.
The UK Recovery Walk charity is
the leading national recovery advocacy
organisation and we feel it is our duty
to speak out when other service
providers and charities don’t, for fear
of losing funding. We will provide
support and work with any individuals
and organisations who want to
highlight and challenge plans to
disinvest in local services. Please
contact us on info@ukrecoverywalk.org
if we can help.
Annemarie Ward,
CEO, UK Recovery Walk charity,
www.ukrecoverywalk.org
DISEASED THINKING
At the RiTC conference Rowdy Yates
told mutual aid fellowships, ‘Stop
calling it (addiction) a disease...’
(
DDN
, November, page 9).
AA co-founder Bill Wilson said, ‘We
AAs have never called alcoholism a
disease because, technically
speaking, it is not a disease entity.
For example, there is no such thing as
heart disease. Instead there are many
separate heart ailments or
combinations of them. It is something
like that with alcoholism. Therefore,
we did not wish to get in wrong with
the medical profession by pronouncing
alcoholism as a disease entity. Hence
we have always called it an illness or
malady – a much safer term to use.’
Clearly addiction is not healthy; but
even a layperson can tell the
difference between being sick or
unwell – and having a disease.
Laurie Andrews, Essex
PAUL’S GOSPEL
I have always admired Paul Hayes as
a politician but never his policies in
regard to recovery from addiction.
To spend 12 years on persuading
politicians to move addicts from heroin
to methadone (akin to moving whisky
drinkers to free supplies of vodka)
when he well knows that since 1966
there has been an addiction recovery
training programme available at 169
centres (including prison units),
indicates that he was either deaf to
what has been succeeding in 49 other
countries for 48 years, or that he had
some other reason for pushing fail-to-
cure ‘treatments’ in Britain.
The pretence that drug addiction is
‘incurable’ is based on the 25 to 30
per cent of heroin users with no
intention or desire ever to quit their
habit. But the other 70 to 75 per
cent, having failed to quit on
numerous – often daily – occasions,
still want to quit, but just don’t know
how. Their problem is not willingness
to quit, but lack of training in how.
The government’s National Audit
Office and Professor Neil McKeganey
tell us that the average overall cost to
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18 |
drinkanddrugsnews
| December 2014
www.drinkanddrugsnews.com
COMPETENT
COMPASSION
I am writing in response to Chris
Ford’s letter (
DDN
, November, page
10) about ‘misbehaving’ in order to
actually give people good and safe
treatment. I am afraid that Chris is
correct in believing it is time to make
a stand. Things will only get worse
unless we resist this focus on a
numbers-based ‘successful
completion’ culture and return to what
makes good quality individual care.
I will declare an interest at this
point. I recently ‘misbehaved’ and
was made unexpectedly ‘redundant’
in an urgent ‘restructure’.
The good news is that it enabled
me to spend time developing a
concept that I’d had in my mind for
several years. There is now a (basic)
website which explains it further –
www.competentcompassion.org.uk
The concept is that whoever
delivers whatever treatment, and
wherever that is, the way to measure
its quality should be ‘does it
demonstrate competent compassion’?
If the person delivering help isn't
competent, then disaster looms. If
they aren't compassionate then it is
unlikely to be helpful, and may well
be ignored. Competence and
compassion are not mutually
exclusive – in fact they are both
essential and in one phrase they sum
up the essence of good quality care.
Wouldn't it be good if that was the
first quality standard by which we
measured ourselves and our services
– not how many people we can get
off a script (for example)?
Competent compassion rises above
all the arguments about harm
minimisation v recovery, NHS v non
NHS, script v abstinence etc. I am
looking for this to be taken up by as
many people and organisations as
possible – locally and nationally. I really
hope that commissioners in particular
can grasp and use this concept of
what quality services should look like.
Please visit the website and do
comment and give feedback. Perhaps
we can make a change before it is
too late – even if it involves some
misbehaving.
Dr Joss Bray,
substance misuse specialist
LETTERS
‘Competent compassion rises above
all the arguments about harm
minimisation v recovery, NHS v non
NHS, script v abstinence etc...’