WHO ARE THE 70,000 NOT IN REHAB NOR ON SUBSTITUTE MEDICATION?

Jon Hibbs, communications director of the National Treatment Agency for Substance Misuse, has written to Addiction Today stating that "one third of people in treatment (sic) are not on substitute medication. NDTMS figures, given in a recent parliamentary question, confirmed that 131,468 people last year received methadone or buprenorphine. The rest are on abstinence-based programmes".

At face value, this appears excellent: the NTA claims in its Annual Report and press releases that a total of over 200,000 people are "in treatment", which means about 70,000 people on Hibbs' "abstinence-based programmes". But only 2% (about 4,000 patients) are referred to abstinence-based residential rehab, and there are even fewer abstinence-based day programmes. So where are the 65,000 or so patients?

We invite answers about this 'third way' approach with interest. What types of treatment are received, for how long and in what numbers? Which organisations provide it? What are the outcomes of these different environments? 

And what percentage of the 65,000 are people seeking help forced to wait 12 weeks between an initial appointment and a second one, who are then labelled as being in "12 weeks retention"?

As ever, an independent audit would underscore this NTA achievement.

Comments

[M Mckenzie]

"abstinence-based day`s programmes",
I`am in recovery myself, i would like to see one of these day programmes start up in my own city of Hull. East Yorkshire as there is nothing at the moment. The local DAT team commission beds in other town & cities and rarely use the Rehab that deals with clients from the criminal justice system in the country ( THE BRIDGES) run by R.A.P.t. This is a vital resource but the local DAT hardly uses it. This seems at odds with Paul Hayes recent comments at the opening of a new centre saying why should clients have to go out of town to treatment, when the resource is local? IT WOULD BE GREAT IF LOCAL DAT COULD START TO LOOK AT DOING MORE FOR CLIENTS WITH A DESIRE TO BE ABSTIENT IN THERE OWN CITY AND PROVIDE MY DAY TREATMENT AND USE LOCAL FACILTIES. LOCAL NEEDS!

[Niall]

Whilst I don't agree with the knee-jerk 'abstinence is best' views, might it be that they are being clever with these statistics and counting crack/ cocaine users in treatment for whom there is no substitute prescription (or those opiate users who are awaiting or have fallen off scripts).

[Peter O'Loughlin]

Come now Deirdre, you really must stop asking such akward questions. it's bad enough you want to know the whereabouts of the 'missing', without compounding the problem by asking what treatment modalities are being employed to assist them in attaining a drug free lifestyle.

How on earh do you expect the NTA to know that? The next thing you'll be asking is how many of those seventy thousand in abstinence focused treatment have actually achieved abstinence, and then no doubt you'll have the termerity to inquire what follow up procedures are there in place to monitor their ongoing condition.

The one redeeming feature of your critique is that you did not ask how many of them had been assessed for comorbidty and what treatment, if any, they are receiving to address the co-occuring disorders which cause relapse.

I think you're being totally unreasonable in asking the NTA for such accounatability, when they are so busy creating favourable headlines.