Sep62017

News story: ACMD warns ministers of falling local funding for drug treatment services

HM Government

The Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD), which advises the government on drugs of misuse and their harmful effects, found that maintaining funding of drug treatment services is essential to preventing drug-related death and drug-driven crime in communities. However, money available for both youth and adult substance misuse services has fallen in recent years.

The ACMD heard evidence of examples of funding reductions in local areas in England, brought about through variations to existing contracts and re-procurement of local services. For example, one local authority re-procured its substance misuse services to achieve 32% ‘cost-efficiencies’ over a five-year contract.

The report says the ACMD is concerned that such a loss of funding would result in the dismantling of a drug misuse treatment system that has brought huge improvement to the lives of people with drug and alcohol problems. If resources are spread too thinly, the report says, the effectiveness of drug treatment will suffer, which could lead to increased levels of blood-borne viruses, drug-related deaths and drug-driven crime in communities.

Annette Dale-Perera, chair of the ACMD’s Recovery Committee, said:

A lack of spending on drug treatment is short-sighted and a catalyst for disaster. England had built a world class drug treatment system, with fast access to free, good quality drug treatment.

This system is now being dismantled due to reductions in resources. Unless government protect funding, the new drug strategy aspiration of ‘effectively funded and commissioned [drug treatment] services’ will be compromised.

The ACMD received evidence that further reductions in resources were likely because of future savings to the overall public health grant, as outlined by Public Health England. The report also found that disruptive and frequent re-procurement of resources was draining vital resources and resulting in poorer recovery outcomes.

It adds that in the complex and changing context it is difficult to see how current levels of drug, and also alcohol, misuse treatment coverage and outcomes can be maintained without significant extra efforts to protect investment and quality.

In its conclusions the ACMD makes a number of recommendations including:

  • drug and alcohol misuse services should be mandated within local authority budgets and/or the commissioning of drug and alcohol treatment placed within NHS commissioning structures
  • transparency and clearer financial reporting on local drug misuse treatment services should be increased in order to challenge local disinvestment or falls in treatment penetration
  • the drug misuse treatment workforce should be reviewed to strike a balance of qualified and unqualified staff and volunteers required for effective drug misuse treatment services
  • links between local healthcare services and local drug treatment systems should be strengthened
  • commissioning contracts should be five to ten years in length
  • research infrastructure and capacity within the drugs misuse field should be addressed

Notes to editors:

Sep62017

Grenfell: We need a new council with new ideas says Green Party

Green Party

6 September 2017

The Green Party has called for the full resignation of the Kensington and Chelsea Council Cabinet after it was revealed that of 196 households who survived the Grenfell fire, only 29 have been found new permanent accommodation [1].

The party says that the resulting byelections would give local residents the opportunity to vote for “leaders in whom they have faith”.

The party has also said that a new council should commit to a set of “radical” policies to help house survivors from the Grenfell fire including a new agreement that social housing must take planning and building priority going forwards.

 

The Green Party candidate for Kensington Jennifer Nadel said:

 

“It is utterly scandalous that the majority of survivors from Grenfell have still not been housed. Many are living crammed into tiny hotel rooms unable to begin the process of healing from their trauma and grief rebuilding their lives.

 

“It shows yet again that this council is not fit for purpose. The same councillors who presided over the tragedy and the appalling failures that followed still have their seats. They should resign now triggering by-elections so that residents can elect leaders in whom they can have faith. It is a continuing insult that they remain in place while residents who have lost everything have not even been housed. The council has the money to solve this problem, what it lacks is the will and that has to change.

 

“A new council with fresh ideas could commit to a radical set of reforms including taking hold of empty homes to house residents, the conversion of abandoned buildings into new social housing, and an agreement that from now on the priority will be to build social homes rather than to give planning permission for more new, expensive, private homes that are beyond the reach of most residents.”

 

Notes

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