£570MILLION - BUT NOT FOR DRUG STRATEGY GOAL

"The longer he is in Downing Street, the more aware the prime minister is becoming of the forces that can thwart progress... every attempt at reform has to fight its way past vested interests and the forces of bureaucratic inertia," James Forsyth of The Spectator and Daily Mail recently noted. This coalition government's humane goal of getting addicts off drugs in its first Drug Strategy is no exception.

On Friday, the National Treatment Agency for Substance Abuse sent a press release to treatment commissioners, saying how much they will get in 2011-12 from a £570million budget for community and prison drug treatment services - but throughout the press release  and accompanying three-page letter from NTA CEO Paul Hayes, there was not one recommendation that they use the funds for the coalition government's reasonable goal of getting addicts drug-free.

There is mention of "recovery", but the NTA does not define recovery, leaving it meaningless for those commissioners spending the pot of money.

It does mention people leaving treatment successfully - but how is that defined? Does it mean those classified this way in NTA annual reports who actually died? Does it mean patients who have been years on methadone must vomit blood, break their clavicles and limbs or have a stroke before they "successfully exit" their substitute drugs and are sent to rehab?

“I believe the sum is sufficient to enable the field to deliver the transformative change set out in the Drug Strategy and ensure that 2011-12 is the year of transition to a recovery-focused treatment system.” said Hayes. We agree that the sum is sufficient - but again note no mention of the government's goal.

""The fact that the prime minister has to devote such attention to checking his instructions are followed across Whitehall does suggest that parts of the Civil Service are forgetting that its role is to implement government policy," Forsyth concludes. 

Comments

[Kenneth Eckersley]

James Forsyth and Addiction Today are hitting the nail squarely on the head.

All we ever get from the NTA are generalities, no specifics and statements, which leave vast acres of room for future manoeuvres in any direction Hayes and his current providers may wish to go.

The only justifiable definition for recovery is: "a lasting return to the natural state of relaxed abstinence into which 99% of the population is born".

But it is because NTA's favourite providers can deliver this in only very small measure that the NTA hides their failure by avoiding stating the results.

What is needed is a broad well-publicised invitation directly, personally as well as publicly to ALL addiction rehabilitation providers asking if they are ready to confirm that they are ready RIGHT NOW to enter into a contract to deliver relaxed abstinence lasting for 12 months from the date an addict starts their programme.

The NTA do not seem to know that their favourite phrase "evidence based" means that a provider regularly delivers at least the above duration of abstinence - which history tells us usually means abstinence for life.

Hayes is delaying the launching of Payment by Results for nearly three years because - quite obviously - none of his budget-holding favourite providers can currently deliver lasting abstinence in sufficient measure to support PbR.

Kenneth Eckersley,
CEO Addiction Recovery Training Services
a not-for-profit community support service

[NTA spokesman]

For the avoidance of any doubt, the NTA is a government body, is accountable directly to the Department of Health and the Home Office, and is charged with delivering the new Drug Strategy. Paul Hayes' letter to partnerships referred five times to fulfilling the treatment aims and recovery outcomes of the Drug Strategy.
The Drug Strategy is clear: "Recovery involves three over-arching principles - wellbeing, citizenship, and freedom from dependence. It is an individual, person-centred journey, as opposed to an end state, and one that will mean different things to different people. We must, therefore, put the individual at the heart of any recovery system and commission a range of services at the local level to provide tailored packages of care and support."
It goes on: "Our ultimate goal is to enable individuals to become free from their dependence; something we know is the aim of the vast majority of people entering drug treatment. Supporting people to live a drug-free life is at the heart of our ambition."
The NTA fully endorses this and the current consultation on Building Recovery in Communities is about engaging the treatment field in delivering on that commitment.

[Deirdre Boyd]

Thank you, Jon Hibbs, for your comments re the NTA.
Paul Hayes does refer to "recovery" - but, if you click on the relevant link in the story, you will see that the NTA has not defined "recovery", rendering references meaningless.
The NTA also does not define "dependence", and has used it in a variety of ways which do not conform to the DSM-IV diagnostic manual.
But thank you - for the first time ever, we can read a statement from the NTA that it endorses "supporting people to live a drug-free life".
Thank you for that breakthrough.

[Barry Haslam]

The NTAs 2011/12 budget is £570 million.
Will Paul Hayes please tell me what part of this budget, is the NTA allocating to iatrogenic drug addiction.eg.diazepam addiction caused by GP prescribing?
Especially as this type of addiction, outnumbers illicit addiction by 6 to 1.
Community addiction, it surely is.