Get treatment or lose benefits - government turns attention to alcoholics

BBC News reports: 'Alcoholics face having their benefits docked if they do not get treatment, under government plans. Minister James Purnell has announced a review into the idea to be carried out jointly by the Department of Health and Department for Work and Pensions.

Measures that require drug addicts to get treatment in order to keep receiving benefits are currently going through Parliament. Mr Purnell said they wanted to help people get the help they needed.  Speaking on a visit to Dewsbury Moor in West Yorkshire, he said:

We have introduced a new policy that will mean heroin and crack addicts get treatment in return for benefits. We will actually help them rather than simply handing them money which ends up in pockets of drug dealers. But we can't abandon anyone to long periods on benefits without help to overcome problems.

So that's why we are going to look at the arrangements for alcoholics on benefits, just as we did for problem drug users, so that people get the help they need to get sober, to get their life back and get back to work.

Mr Purnell has previously said that the plans to cut drug addicts' benefits would give them the chance to "turn their lives around".'

Quite how this approach can be justified when alcohol treatment provision in England is so patchy and relatively underfunded compared to drug treatment remains to be seen.  Only last year the National Audit Office report Reducing Alcohol Harm: Health services in England for alcohol misuse  was critical of the way alcohol treatment is commissioned and organised:

Local provision of specialist services is not based on a good understanding of communities’ needs and there are wide variations between localities. There is also much scope for better integration of hospital services with follow-on and support services, such as psychiatry or self-help groups, to improve recovery rates and prevent patients relapsing into their previous drinking patterns.

The Department of Health Alcohol Needs Assessment Research Project (ANARP) found that:

• Drug Action Teams (DATs) receive funding from a range of sources including primary care trusts, local authorities and charitable funds. In the quantitative survey of DAT professionals, 86% of respondents said that their alcohol treatment budgets are much lower than drug budgets [although there are many more people with alcohol problems than there are problem drug users]
• In the qualitative research with DAT professionals, this group was aware of a ‘very large gap’ between the provision of alcohol treatment and need or demand, however it is expressed.