State of the Sector 2013: report on drug and alcohol services
DrugScope have published a report detailing how policy and commissioning changes are affecting drug and alcohol services.
State of the Sector 2013 [pdf] contains the findings from a survey of nearly 170 drug and alcohol services in England. It finds the drug and alcohol sector in a period of flux and facing a number of challenges:
- Significant problems in their ability to offer clients support to improve recovery capital, particularly employment, housing and mental and physical wellbeing;
- The picture on engagement with Health and Wellbeing Boards (HWBs) and Police and Crime Commissioners (PCCs) is mixed, with positive examples, but other services reporting a lack of engagement;
- 35% of drug and alcohol services reported a decrease in funding, against 20% reporting an increase and 33% no change;
- Just over half reported a large increase in caseloads in the last year, against 27 per cent reporting a decrease;
- Almost half reported that they were employing fewer frontline staff and 6 out of 10 services reported an increase in the use of volunteers.
In 2010 Alcohol Concern published a report calling for increased support for dependent drinkers, suggesting that doubling the number in treatment could save £1.7 billion. The number of drinkers recieving treatment has risen slightly over recent years.
Building Recovery in Communities: regional events
DrugScope is hosting a series of regional summits on behalf of the Recovery Partnership, with the next ones taking place on 4th March 2014 in Manchester and 17th March in Brighton. The 'Building Recovery in Communities' events aim to provide an up-to-date briefing on policy developments, and a chance to hear from and debate with key decision-makers and service providers in the regions.
See our recent round up of forthcoming alcohol events here.
Comic Relief 'Give it up' grants to promote abstinence based recovery
Comic Relief have opened two grant programmes spearheaded by Russel Brand. First, a pilot scheme that will build a community-wide approach in local areas to increase the support available to help people sustain recovery. Secondly, grants of up to £5,000 to help ‘recovery graduates’ and others run activities and other services focused on helping people to sustain recovery and reduce stigma towards those with addictions.
Survey on the development of a treatment service Quality Framework
The Substance Misuse Skills Consortium is seeking brief views on the development of a Quality Framework for community drug and alcohol treatment services. The survey presents possible options for the development of a new framework and is aimed at commissioners, practitioners, those involved in quality assurance and standards in treatment providers, service-users and their families.
PHE residential rehab stocktake survey
Public Health England are carrying out surveys on residential rehab in response to interest in how the changes to healthcare and commissioning systems are impacting on the sector. There are two online surveys, one for commissioners and one for providers - each should take 10-15 minutes to complete. The deadline for completion is 21 February.
Also, in February’s issue of Drink and Drugs News, Jo Palmieri looks back at 50 years of social action affecting the drug and alcohol field.
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