Basic HTML Version
WELSH WALK
The first ever Welsh National Recovery Walk
will take place in Cardiff on 10 September,
supported by the UK Recovery Federation,
UK Recovery Academy and Cardiff County
Council. ‘The walk would ‘go a long way
towards countering the considerable amount
of prejudice, discrimination and stigmatisa-
tion of people with addiction and mental
health problems that still exists in society,’
said chair of the walk’s event committee,
Wynford Ellis Owen.
To register email
welshrecoverywalk@gmail.com
CANNABIS CONCERNS
The controversy over whether cannabis use
can increase the risk of psychotic outcomes
in young people has been reignited by a new
study published in the
BMJ
. A ten-year follow-
up study of nearly 2,000 14-24 year-olds in
Germany concluded that ‘cannabis use is a
risk factor for the development of incident
psychotic symptoms’ and could ‘increase
the risk for psychotic disorder by impacting
on the persistence of symptoms’. The
association was independent of age, sex,
socioeconomic status, use of other drugs,
environment and childhood trauma, states
the report. The research found that cannabis
use preceded the onset of psychiatric
symptoms in young people with no history of
psychotic experiences.
FREEDOM FOR NOREEN
BAC O’Connor chief executive Noreen Oliver
has become the first woman to be awarded
freedom of the Borough of East
Staffordshire, in recognition of her ‘eminent
service to the local area’. ‘This is a great
honour for me and for everyone that works
tirelessly to help people with drug and
alcohol dependency issues,’ she said.
See
DDN, 7 February, page 20 for a profile of
Noreen Oliver.
JOINING UP
A new strategy outlining a partnership
approach to tackling drug and alcohol
misuse in Edinburgh has been launched by
community safety MSP Fergus Ewing. The
Edinburgh Alcohol and Drug Partnership
(EADP) will enable organisations to have a
‘common approach’.
edinburghadp.co.uk
WOMAN’S DAY
Tomorrow (8 March) marks the 100th
International Woman’s Day.
DDN
will be
marking the occasion in our next issue with
a major feature on Dristi Nepal, an
organisation for female Nepalese drug users
and those living with HIV.
7 March 2011 |
drinkanddrugsnews
| 5
www.drinkanddrugsnews.com
The government plans to revise the formula for distributing
drug treatment budgets to include an additional incentive
based on how many people successfully recover from
dependency, the NTA has announced. The incentives are
being developed in parallel with the six payment by results
(PbR) pilot schemes, scheduled to launch later this year
(DDN, 17 January, page 4).
The new formula will come into effect in 2012, when the
NTA becomes part of Public Health England and
responsibility for commissioning drug and alcohol
treatment shifts to local directors of public health (
DDN
, 6
December 2010, page 4). The allocations will be ‘based on
the completion outcomes delivered by individual
partnerships in 2011/12’ says the agency.
The NTA has also published full funding details for
2011/12, with the adult and young people’s pooled treatment
budget (PTB) allocations remaining unchanged at £381.3m
and £25.4m respectively. The budget for prison-based
treatment will also remain unaltered, but the total treatment
allocation of around £570m is down by around 1.6 per cent on
last year as a result of reductions in DIP funding. The size of
the budget represented ‘a substantial commitment’ by the
government at a time when other services were facing drastic
cuts, said NTA chief executive Paul Hayes, but warned that the
greatest threat was the potential for disinvestment at local
level. ‘With the impending abolition of PCTs and severe
budgetary pressures on local authorities, there is legitimate
concern across the treatment field that the funding
traditionally provided locally will be squeezed.’
DrugScope called the funding allocation ‘very good news’
but warned that proposed rewards based on numbers
completing treatment needed careful thought to avoid
‘perverse incentives’ such as clients being pressured to leave
treatment before they were ready or services discriminating
against those with more ‘entrenched’ problems or multiple
needs. The charity also shared the NTA’s concern about the risk
of local authorities failing to prioritise drug and alcohol
treatment, and warned of the impact of the wider cuts agenda.
‘Good quality drug treatment is an integral part of
supporting recovery, but achieving recovery and improving
outcomes also requires continued investment in – and access
to – a range of other local services,’ said chief executive
Martin Barnes. ‘The ambitions of the drug strategy require,
for example, the availability of decent, affordable
accommodation, family support services, money and debt
advice and training and employment opportunities.’
Meanwhile, the NTA has announced the 16 local areas in
England that have been shortlisted as potential PbR pilot
sites. They are Bracknell Forest, Enfield, Kent, Lancs, Lincs,
Middlesbrough, Oxfordshire, Staffs, Stockport, Surrey,
Wakefield, Wigan and Wirral. The six successful sites will
begin co-designing the pilots next month, with the
intention that they are up and running by October.
The NTA has also announced the reappointment of board
members Alison Comley, Peter McDermott and Dr Gabriel
Scally, along with chair Baroness Massey, for the transition
period before the agency’s functions are transferred to Public
Health England.
Government to offer cash
recovery incentives
News in Brief
News |
Round-up
The government has launched its Welfare Reform
Bill, which it calls the ‘biggest shake up of the
system for 60 years’.
The bill’s provisions will replace ‘the patchwork
of benefits and credits’ with a single universal
credit, and the government will also introduce new
powers to tackle welfare fraud by next year,
including the threat of a three-year benefit ban for
repeat offenders.
The bill ‘shows what is expected of claimants
while giving protection to those with the greatest
needs’, the government states, but controversial
plans to reduce housing benefit by 10 per cent for
people on jobseeker's allowance for more than a
year have been dropped. The reforms would ‘end the
absurdity of a systemwhere people too often get
rewarded for doing the wrong thing’, said work and
pensions secretary Iain Duncan Smith, putting ‘work,
rather than hand outs, at the heart of the welfare
system’. The bill has its second reading in the House
of Commons this week (9 March).
Andrew Selous MP and Niamh Eastwood of Release
debate the proposals at Seize the Day! on page 8.
Welfare Reform Bill
sees light of day
Drought dangers: A poster alerting people to the risks associated with
the current heroin drought has been produced by Mike Linnell of the
Lifeline Project. Heroin users have been warned that shortages of the
drugmean that it is far more likely to have been cut with unknown
bulking agents, leading to lowered tolerance and an increased risk of
overdose when heroin becomes more freely available (
DDN, 7 February,
page 6
). Mike Linnell also created Lifeline’s acclaimed
Mr Mange Goes
Over
animated short, warning of the risk of overdose among older long-
termheroin users (DDN, 7 September 2009, page 14).