NEW 10-YEAR DRUG STRATEGY LAUNCHED
STRATEGY FOCUSES ON IMPROVING OUTCOMES AND REINTEGRATION
The new drug strategy focuses on improving the impact of treatment and helping drug users reintegrate into society. Drugs: protecting families and communities says that while there have been improvements in treatment access and waiting times, too many drug users do not complete treatment programmes or stay in treatment too long before re-establishing their lives. It wants to see more focus on treatment outcomes and more drug users coming off benefits and getting into work.
Priorities outlined in the strategy include:
- Improving treatment quality and outcomes, retention rates and the numbers leaving treatment drug free
- Encouraging joint working between treatment agencies, job centres and sources of housing advocacy and support
- More tailored support for jobless drug users which would mean claimants entering treatment in return for benefit payments
- Increasing the number and range of offenders within the Drugs Intervention Programme
- Removing barriers to services for drug using parents
Read drug workers reaction to the strategy in the April edition of LDAN News by clicking here
Download the strategy by clicking here
The drug strategy is underpinned by a series of three-year action plans. Download the action plan for 2008-2011 by clicking here
More London Drug and Alcohol News
LONDON LOSES OUT UNDER NEW FUNDING FORMULA
Drug services in London are adversely affected by a new formula for allocating funding. Under the formula based on numbers in treatment, London's allocation from the pooled treatment budget could drop 14% over the next three years, while a third of London boroughs could see their funding reduced by a quarter. The National Treatment Agency says the new formula is more equitable and will redistribute funding to under funded areas.
Service providers in London have raised the following concerns about the new funding system:
- Large reductions in funding are likely to lead to cutbacks in frontline services in areas with a high prevalence of problematic drug use
- London has a high proportion of hard to reach drug users including black and minority ethnic users, poly drug users and stimulant users. A formula based on numbers in treatment will not promote the more intensive one-to-one and outreach work needed to engage them in treatment
- The funding formula does little to shift the emphasis from blunt number-based targets to treatment quality
Read more about providers concerns about the funding changes in the February edition of LDAN News by clicking here
Read what the National Treatment Agency says about the funding formula by
clicking here
BUILD BRIDGES AND COMPETENCE - LDAN CONFERENCE TOLD
Build bridges and competence – that was the message given to drug and alcohol workers at the London Drug and Alcohol Network’s annual conference. The conference focused on the complexity of drug users needs and barriers to improving treatment services for them.
Read more about the conference in the December 2007 edition of LDAN News
TREATMENT SYSTEM "DOES NOT PROMOTE" BME WORK
Drug and alcohol services say it is becoming increasingly difficult to work with black and minority ethnic communities.They say the current Class A focused, target driven system does little to promote BME work.
To read more about black and minority ethnic substance use and service provision in a special BME edition of LDAN News click here
To read about some of the issues around BME service provision click here
DRUG REPORT OUTLINES SHORTCOMINGS IN TREATMENT SYSTEM
The Government is right to increase spending on drug treatment, as evidence suggests it is effective and cuts drug-related health and crime problems. But a new report by the RSA is heavily critical of the favourable treatment drug-using offenders get in the system, as well as outlining a raft of other shortcomings.
Click here to read the full article in the March 2007 edition of LDAN News.
Click here to download the RSA report.
DRUG SERVICES CAN HELP PUSH ALCOHOL UP TREATMENT AGENDA
Drug and alcohol services can help push alcohol up the treatment agenda. Delegates attending the London Drug and Alcohol Network’s (LDAN) annual conference were told practitioners have a key part to play improving alcohol treatment and pushing it up the health agenda. LDAN chair Robyn Doran said: “Most of us have clients affected by both drugs and alcohol, so we need to be asking ourselves "what are we doing with the resources that we do have?”
Read more about the conference “Alcohol: the Forgotten Substance in Drug Treatment” in the December 2006 edition of LDAN News by clicking here
Click here for the conference presentations.
SYSTEMS FOR MEASURING ALCOHOL RELATED HARM "INADEQUATE"
Not enough is being done to measure the impact of longer opening hours on drinkers’ health. One year after the Licensing Act came into force, researchers say the systems in place for gathering alcohol-related health information are inadequate and will not pick up any increase in health problems.They say only people that arrive in A+E departments intoxicated are counted under the current system
Read the full story about the impact of the licensing changes in the November 2006 edition of LDAN News by clicking here
MORE SPECIALIST SERVICES NEEDED FOR SOCIALLY EXCLUDED FAMILIES
Services working with families affected by drug and alcohol misuse say they need more funding if the Government is to successfully tackle social exclusion. They say it is difficult to help vulnerable families because the treatment system is “skewed” towards individuals. The question of funding was highlighted by the publication of the Government’s social exclusion action plan.
Read the full story on the frontpage of the September 2006 edition of LDAN News
Click here to download the Government's social exclusion action plan
"STATISTICS DRIVEN" DIP EXPANSION QUESTIONED
DIP providers have doubts about whether the Home Office’s latest initiative to cut drug-related crime will work. Many question whether Tough Choices focus on testing and assessing large numbers of drug users in custody, will result in many more people in treatment. If it does, drug workers are concerned that the treatment system will not be able to cope with the influx. One worker said the danger with such a “statistics driven” system was that only "what gets measured gets done”.
Click here to read the full article on Tough Choices in the April 2006 edition of LDAN News
"TICKBOX" USER INVOLVEMENT CRITICISED
Service providers are critical of the way user involvement is being implemented in London. Providers have told LDAN some commissioners are "hijacking" the process and "parachuting" service users onto committees and user groups. They say this top-down approach is tokenistic and indicative of a “tickbox” attitude rather than any concern to meaningfully increase service users input.
Read the full article in a special edition of LDAN News published in February 2006 User News
To read a briefing on User Involvement click here
LDAN REPORT HIGHLIGHTS ALCOHOL RESOURCE ISSUES
An LDAN report suggests alcohol services in London are not adequately funded to cope with the growing levels of alcohol misuse. The London Alcohol Statistics Project indicates that alcohol misusers are waiting twice as long as drug users for treatment, while staff struggle to keep on top of data collection and outcome monitoring. Data on almost 7000 service users in 27 London boroughs was collected in the project.
To download the report click here
LDAN WEBSITE RECRUITMENT SERVICE
LDAN has an online recruitment service which is free to members and available to associate members and others at highly competitive rates. You can post an advertisement directly onto the site via our quick and easy ‘Post a Job’ service—or send us your job details by post, fax or email. So, if you have a job to advertise, click on the 'jobs' section on the left hand menu and see how easy it is to advertise with us.
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