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Question 2:
Time-limited scripts –
could there ever be a place
for enforced reduction?
‘THE SHORT ANSWER IS NO,’
clinical
lead for SMMGP, Dr Chris Ford, told the
conference. Opioid substitution
therapy was not a block to recovery or
achieving abstinence – ‘if that’s where
you want to go’ – she said. ‘Used well
they are extremely good drugs. But in
terms of the professionals who just
give out a script and that’s all they do
– that is not treatment.’
Prescribing was only ‘a tiny part’ of
treatment, she stressed. ‘The sadness
of the last ten years is that so much of
the money has gone through the
criminal justice system, and that has
unbalanced things.’ Release’s deputy
director, Niamh Eastwood, meanwhile,
assured delegates that any enforced
detoxification in prison was illegal.
‘There’s compensation to be had if
anyone’s forced to go cold turkey,’ she
said.
Question 1:
Drugs and alcohol –
what will their place be
in the imminent Public
Health England service?
‘ONE OF THE THINGS WE’VE BEEN
CRITICISED FOR
in the past is the
discrepancy between drugs and alcohol,’
NTA chief executive Paul Hayes told the
conference. ‘It’s never made sense to do
this, and Public Health England gives us
the chance to right this historic wrong.’
Locating drugs and alcohol within
local authorities offered the chance to
join up with other services, but the
remit would inevitably prove challenging
for many directors of public health who
perhaps had not given much priority to
these issues in the past, he
acknowledged. ‘A lot of them engage
with this, but a lot of them don’t. But
what is certain is that they won’t be
able to ignore this agenda’.
Drugs and alcohol would be big
players in health and wellbeing boards,
he told the conference, but at the same
time there would be other people
‘eyeing up the money and wanting a
piece of it’. ‘There are real opportunities
to join things up, but we need to do it in
the right way because there are threats
and challenges as well.’
Annemarie Ward of the UK Recovery
Federation (UKRF), however, said her
concern was that stigma could play a
major role in local authorities failing to
prioritise drug and alcohol services.
‘Will we see the same old mistakes
being made in the new system?’ she
asked. ‘There’s no easy fix,’ said Paul
Hayes. ‘But the recovery movement
gives a real opportunity for people to
say to their communities “we are
citizens, we are entitled to services like
any other citizens, and we can make a
real contribution”. In straitened times
is there a risk involved in moving money
locally? You bet there is. But we have to
win these arguments.’
The fact that drugs and alcohol
were to be commissioned by directors
of public health instead of GP
consortia was recognition on the part
of the Department of Health that the
sector was different, he said. ‘There
are many healthcare professionals
who are very dedicated to working with
people with drug and alcohol
problems, but there are many more
with the same prejudices you find in
the rest of society. The view taken
within government was that GP
consortia would not be the right place
to commission these services. But at
the same time that doesn’t mean GPs
are absolved of responsibility.’
‘I’d just like to say all praise to the
NTA,’ said one delegate, ‘for finally
accepting that drugs and alcohol
belong together.’
Question 3:
Are there circumstances
in which stigma towards
drug users can be useful?
‘WHEN I SHARE MY HISTORY WITH
PEOPLE
they say “you don’t look like
a drug user”,’ said Annemarie Ward of
the UKRF. ‘I say to them “what does a
drug user look like?”’
‘I don’t see any circumstances
where it’s the case that stigma could
be useful,’ said Beryl Poole of the
Alliance. ‘Personally, I’ve actually
become immune to stigma because
I’ve experienced it for so long. The
stigma we go through follows us
everywhere, especially in places that,
as we get older, we need the most,
like hospitals. Stigma is all around
us, but I think one thing we have to be
careful about is seeing it when it isn’t
there – we have to accept the good
bits.’
Stigma needed to be tackled head
on through use of the law, urged Chris
Ford. ‘It’s illegal to be racist in this
10 |
drinkanddrugsnews
| 7 March 2011
Seize the day |
Question time
www.drinkanddrugsnews.com
In the
Question Time
session, a panel
of speakers debated five key questions
posed by the readers of
DDN
THE
BIG
ASK