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Sue Bandcroft
‘T
here’s nothing like the sun shining to
make you think how nice it is not to have
to worry about going into work, but I do
miss it,’ says Sue Bandcroft. ‘So I’m
starting to look around for something else
to get involved in.’
Although she retired as substance misuse manager
for Bristol City Council in May, she’s been helping to
finish off work around a framework for residential rehab
services in the city. ‘I’m still dabbling in there, as it were,
but I’m trying to say, “I have to let them get on with it”
now. I’m just looking at whether I should be still involved
in the field, or are there other things I can get involved in?
A bit like someone who’s been a service user for a long time
– you start to see that actually there are other things in life.’
It’s a field she first came into in the 1980s, but it was while
working as a nurse in London in the early ’70s that she really
became aware of the impact that drugs and alcohol could have.
‘Even before that, at school, I had friends who’d had not pleasant
experiences around drug use,’ she says. ‘So it had always been
around.’
While nursing she became involved in health and sex
education in schools, and later HIV prevention work. ‘When I
came to Bristol I was very much on the sexual health
side, and in those days they had things called
HIV prevention coordinators, so when the
money came along I had
responsibility for the drugs
budget of that. One of the
few things to thank Mrs
Thatcher for was
actually funding
those sort of
things.’
Span
16 |
drinkanddrugsnews
| September 2014
www.drinkanddrugsnews.com
Recently retired substance misuse
manager for Bristol City Council,
Sue Bandcroft, reflects on decades of
change in the sector. By
David Gilliver
‘There has to be a realism about
the tight constraints, and workers
do a disservice to their clients if
they don’t look at what’s
happening in the rest of the world
with all the welfare reforms.’