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November 2012 |
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Round-up
Budget cuts
could reverse
falling drug use
rates among
young people
Ongoing budget cuts and restructuring in the public
sector are putting young people’s services at risk
and could threaten progress in reducing levels of
drug and alcohol use (see story, left), says a report
from the UK Drug Policy Commission (UKDPC) in
association with DrugScope and Mentor.
Cuts to generic services could have a knock-on
effect on substance misuse problems, warns
Domino
effects
, with young people’s services particularly
vulnerable as provision often comes via ‘a patchwork
of funding streams’ and a perception of them as
peripheral to ‘core business’.
While many treatment services for young people
have so far been protected from budget restrictions,
wider youth services that play an important role in
‘drug prevention, problem identification and
sustaining treatment benefits’ are being harder hit,
says the report, which draws on interviews with
staff members from a range of services across nine
local areas.
Ongoing upheaval in the public sector also
means that services aimed at young people will
need to compete with adult care budgets for
funding, the document points out, with many
organisations already cutting or reducing specific
activities and looking for efficiency gains by
reducing posts or sharing staff.
‘Drug use among young people has fallen sharply
over the last decade, at the same time as we saw a
sustained investment in young people’s services,’
said report author and UKDPC director of policy and
research, Nicola Singleton. ‘That investment helped
create joined-up services that allowed early
intervention before specialist drug services were
needed. Now these services are threatened by a
combination of financial pressure and the speed and
scale of the current public service reforms.’
Many young people who need help for drug or
alcohol problems are also experiencing mental
health issues, difficulties at home or school or
involvement with the criminal justice system, said
DrugScope’s director of policy and membership,
Marcus Roberts. ‘Unfortunately, we’ve been hearing
concerns from DrugScope’s member agencies for
some time now about the impact of local spending
cuts and structural reforms on young people’s drug
and alcohol treatment. This report provides evidence
that significant changes in the way that services are
planned and commissioned, coupled with severe
budgetary pressures, are threatening to undo the
progress that has been made in treatment for this
group over the past decade.’
Young adults seeking
heroin or crack treatment
at ‘all-time low’
The number of young adults entering treatment for
heroin or crack is at its lowest recorded level, according
to figures released by the NTA.
There was a 23 per cent fall in the number of 18 to
24-year-olds seeking treatment for heroin in the last
year alone, to just over 4,000, says
Drug treatment
2012: progress made, challenges ahead
, and down
from more than 11,000 seven years ago.
Of the total treatment population, nearly 30,000
people successfully completed their treatment in
2011-12, up nearly 2,000 from the previous year and
three times the number from seven years ago, while
the total number of people seeking heroin treatment
for the first time has fallen to just over 9,000 from
nearly 48,000 in 2005-06. Heroin remains the main
problem drug, with over 96,000 of the total treatment
population of 197,000 seeking treatment for heroin
dependency, and 63,000 for heroin and crack. Powder
cocaine accounted for just 5 per cent of the treatment
population, and cannabis 8 per cent.
The current recession had not produced the same
levels of youth unemployment as in the 1980s, said
NTA chief executive Paul Hayes – although
unemployment and hopelessness among the young
remained ‘fertile territory for addiction’ – and
combined with this had been the scale of investment in
treatment over the last ten years, something that
‘cannot be guaranteed’ in the current climate. ‘There is
a risk that squeezed local authorities will disinvest, not
necessarily from treatment services, but from allied
services that support recovery.’
The only age group whose numbers were increasing,
however, were the over-40s, who now made up almost
a third of the entire treatment population and
represented a ‘particular challenge’, said Hayes. ‘Some
became addicted in the heroin epidemics of the ’80s
and ’90s and are only coming into treatment now, and
many are at risk of death as their health fails.’ There
were 802 drug misuse deaths among over-40s in 2011,
says the report, 300 more than a decade ago and 500
more than among the under-30s.
Methadone remained ‘an absolutely crucial first step
for many people’, Hayes stated, although too often in
the past it had not been used as ‘a platform for
recovery’. ‘The majority of, but not all, people with an
opiate problemwill pass through substitute medication,
and it’s important that it’s available,’ he said. ‘But it’s
also important that it doesn’t become a prop.’
The challenge was to deliver ‘a truly integrated,
balanced and recovery-oriented system,’ said
DrugScope chief executive Martin Barnes, something
the treatment sector was capable of with the
necessary resources and support. ‘In difficult economic
times there is a strong and compelling case for
national and local investment in drug and alcohol
treatment,’ he said. ‘We need to continue to make this
case as the local funding and commissioning
environment is changing, with the election of police
and crime commissioners, the introduction of the new
public health system and the establishment of Public
Health England. Despite encouraging trends in
declining drug use, drug and alcohol dependency
continue to blight the lives of many, with harms and
costs for individuals, families and communities.’
Meanwhile, a private members’ bill to make
lessons on drugs, alcohol and relationships
compulsory in schools (see feature, page 10) has been
introduced by Diana Johnson MP under the ‘ten
minute rule bill’ procedure. The Relationship, Drug and
Alcohol Education (Curriculum) Bill is backed by a
range of organisations including Adfam, Mentor,
Alcohol Concern and Turning Point.
Report at www. nta.nhs.uk
See news focus page 6
FORWARD FOR RECOVERY:
Phoenix Futures service users have
successfully completed their 1,800-
mile sailing challenge around the
coast of the UK, the Voyage of
Recovery. The 80ft Tectona sail boat
set sail in early August and arrived
back in Plymouth on 25 October.
Being part of the voyage gave ‘a
real sense of achievement that will
stay with me forever,’ said Donna
Barry fromWirral. ‘I’ve returned
focused and at peace with myself.’
Phoenix Futures chief executive
Karen Biggs is profiled on page 18.