A guide on promoting drug and alcohol treatment services has been released to help make the case for investment. Produced by Drugscope and the Recovery Partnership, the guide aims to 'ensure that treatment and recovery do not slip down the political agenda' in local areas.
The guide details the current commissioning landscape following the various changes, and includes sections on; sourcing statistics and data, crafting key messages, developing narratives from service users and staff and building positive community relations.
To support the release of the report, Marcus Roberts, Chief Executive of DrugScope, blogged on the challenges and opportunities facing the sector against a backdrop of localism, large public sector cuts, and other key considerations for the 'recovery' agenda.
Alcohol Concern have continued to make the case for more services to support dependent drinkers, sometimes highlighting the significant gap between investment in drug versus alcohol treatment. Recently they warned of the impact of the commissioning changes on local services, though to date total numbers in alcohol treatment are still increasingly somewhat.
See here for Publuc Health England's suite of tools to help local areas develop JSNAs and joint health and wellbeing strategies, or here for NICE alcohol commissioning guidance.
CQC to inspect treatment services
Earlier this year the Quality Care Commission (CQC) set out its 'new approach' to inspecting substance misuse services 'to ensure that services are safe, caring, effective, responsive to people's needs and well-led'. The CQQ was established in 2009 to regulate and inspect health and social care services in England.
It says the first inspections will cover hospital inpatient-based services, community based services and residential rehabilitation services. The release says the way they will regulate services will:
'...reflect the key aim of the government's drug strategy to put people's recovery at the heart of its approach. This means making sure that people are able to quickly access high-quality services that assess the whole individual. It also means making sure that people's needs and choices are at the centre of their treatment.'
Download A fresh start for the regulation and inspection of substance misuse services [PDF]
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