RECOVERY HOUSING
A new partnership between two of the UK’s
main residential rehab providers is to create
one of the ‘largest providers of recovery
housing in the country’. TTP Housing and
Inward House Projects are amalgamating to
bring more than 200 beds across England
together under one provider, working with TTP
Counselling to deliver inpatient detox,
community day care and residential rehab for
both drugs and alcohol. ‘This collaboration is
a significant step towards our goal of building
a nationwide network of recovery treatment
housing,’ said TTP’s chief executive in charge
of strategic development, Tom Kirkwood. ‘We
want to increase the availability of
accommodation to people during and after
rehab treatment to support their sustained
recovery.’
See page 15
BINGEING ‘NOT HARDWIRED’
Alcohol misuse is ‘not somehow hardwired into
the national psyche’, health secretary Andrew
Lansley told Drinkaware’s annual conference in
London last month. ‘I don’t believe drinking too
much needs to be the British way. I believe we
can change behaviours, we can secure
progress, and I believe we can do it without
excessive, burdensome regulation.’ Giving
people the information to change their own
behaviour was the key to progress, he told
delegates. The government’s plans to address
the sale of below-cost alcohol were recently
branded ineffectual by alcohol charities.
(See news story, facing page).
AVOIDING PITFALLS
An updated guide to the most common
mistakes made when dealing with child
protection cases has been launched by
NSPCC. Problems looked at in Ten pitfalls
and how to avoid them include local
authorities referring families to other
agencies without follow up, insufficient
weight given to information from friends,
family and neighbours – or the children
themselves – and insufficient engagement
with parents for a proper risk assessment.
The booklet is aimed at anyone contributing
to child protection referrals and plans. ‘The
sheer volume of referrals presents an
enormous challenge to initial assessment
teams, who often have to make decisions
within short timescales, on the basis of
limited information,’ said lead author Dr
Karen Broadhurst. ‘This combination of
pressures can result
in quick
categorisations, which do not always ensure
services meet children’s needs.’
Available at www.nspcc.org.uk/tenpitfalls
7 February 2011 |
drinkanddrugsnews
| 5
www.drinkanddrugsnews.com
The government’s highly
controversial Health and Social Care
Bill, which includes plans to
‘modernise’ the NHS by replacing
Primary Care Trusts (PCTs) with GP-led
consortia responsible for
commissioning (
DDN
, 19 July 2010,
page 5), will have a dramatic impact
on the treatment sector, drugs
charities have warned.
The document – the ‘start of a
cultural shift to a patient-centred
NHS’, according to health secretary
Andrew Lansley – also includes
measures to create a new service,
Public Health England, with
responsibility for drug and alcohol
treatment (
DDN
, 3 December 2010,
page 4).
The bill represented the ‘biggest
shake-up of the NHS since its
inception’, said the King’s Fund, with
the gains of the last decade ‘at risk
from the combination of the funding
squeeze and the speed and scale of
the reforms as currently planned’.
‘While the government’s reforms
have the potential to improve the
NHS, they will be implemented
against the backdrop of the biggest
financial challenge in its history,’ said
chief executive Chris Ham. ‘Finding
the £20bn in efficiency savings
needed to maintain services must be
the overriding priority, so the very
real risk that the speed and scale of
the reforms could destabilise the
NHS and undermine care must be
actively managed.’
The proposals would have ‘far-
reaching implications’ for drug and
alcohol treatment, said DrugScope,
with ‘structures, commissioning
processes and the environment in
which substance misuse services
operate’ facing radical alteration. ‘It
will be important to ensure that
provision is sufficiently funded and
delivered in a manner that is
consistent with the NHS principles,
constitution and NICE clinical
standards,’ warned chief executive
Martin Barnes.
www.dh.gov.uk/healthandsocialcarebill
Health bill will have ‘far-
reaching implications’ for field
News in Brief
News |
Round-up
Figures point to declining drug use
The percentage of adults in England
who had used one or more illicit drug
within the last year fell to 8.6 in
2009/10 from just over 10 per cent in
2008/09, according to figures
released by the NHS Information
Centre. The rate has fallen from more
than 11 per cent since 1996.
There has also been an overall
drop in drug use reported by 11-15
year olds since 2001, falling from 29
per cent to 22 per cent in 2009. Drug-
related hospital admissions, however,
are up, with 5,809 people admitted
to hospital with a primary diagnosis
of a drug-related mental health and
behavioural disorder in 2009/10, an
increase of 2.5 per cent from the
previous year – including both legal
and illegal drugs. Where primary or
secondary diagnosis was recorded
there were 44,585 admissions, a 5.7
per cent increase. The North West
and Yorkshire and Humber strategic
health authority areas have the
highest rates of admissions for drug-
related mental health and
behavioural disorders.
Drug poisoning accounted for a
further 11,618 admissions, 4.8 per
cent more than in 2008/09. The total
number of deaths related to drug
misuse in England and Wales was
1,738 in 2008, almost 80 per cent of
whom were male.
Statistics on drug
misuse: England 2010
draws together
data from the NTA, Office for National
Statistics, Home Office and others, as
well as previously unpublished
figures on drug-related admissions
from The NHS Information Centre's
hospital episodes statistics.
In Scotland, meanwhile, there
were 545 drug-related deaths in
2009, according to figures from the
National Drug Related Death
Database (Scotland), over a third of
whom had no record of any contact
with drug treatment services at any
point in their lives. Chair of the
National Forum on Drug Related
Deaths, Dr Roy Robertson, called the
figures ‘particularly worrying’. ‘Earlier
intervention through treatment may
have been able to steer these people
away from addiction and into
recovery,’ said community safety
minister Fergus Ewing.
Overall rates of self-reported drug
use among Scottish adults have
remained stable since 2008/09,
according to the
Scottish crime and
justice survey 2009/10
. Rates of
cocaine use, however, have fallen from
2.7 per cent in 2008/09 to 2.1 per cent.
• Statistics on drug misuse: England
2010 available at www.ic.nhs.uk
• Scottish crime and justice survey
2009/10 available at
www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/20
11/01/21134813/0
• National Drug Related Deaths Data-
base (Scotland) report 2009 available at
www.isdscotland.org/isd/6527.html
Andrew Lansley: ‘The start of a
cultural shift to a patient-centred NHS.’