Stoke-on-Trent drug services failing to get enough addicts into treatment
Drug and alcohol services in Stoke-on-Trent are failing to get enough addicts into treatment - and could face financial penalties. Stoke-on-Trent City Council received £9.5 million in extra funding to expand addiction services over a three-year period from 2022, as part of a new national strategy following a decade of cuts.
But managers say it is 'unlikely' that the service will hit its target of getting 1,927 addicts into treatment by the end of next March, which may result in financial sanctions. There are currently 1,739 people in treatment. A lack of referrals from GPs and other agencies in Stoke-on-Trent, as well as a national shortage of qualified drugs workers, are the among the reasons being given for the service being behind target.
Members of Stoke-on-Trent's health and wellbeing board were told that the process of setting up and launching the redesigned Community Drug and Alcohol Service (CDAS) also had an impact.
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Senior commissioning manager Vicki Yates said: "There are many reasons why we've not reached those targets. The tender process delayed some projects from starting, and while the new service was being mobilised there were many things which coudn't be taken forward in this financial year.
"There are national recruitment issues with drug workers. There has been a lot of disinvestment in drug and alcohol services over the last 10 years, so the workforce was diminished significantly. Then a whole lot of money was flooded across the system, meaning there's now such great demand for workers - there's a 20 per cent vacancy rate within our community drug and alcohol service at the moment."
Ms Yates said the council was carrying out a number of measures to increase the numbers of people in treatment, including greater promotion of CDAS among partner agencies, and making the referral process as accessible as possible. Up until recently, CDAS only accepted self-referrals from addicts, to ensure they were ready for treatment, but that has now changed.
Ms Yates added: "What we need to do is get more people referring in - one of the areas that stands out is GP referrals. We have very few GP referrals into system. When people have got a problem and go to their doctors but there isn't that mechanism to refer those people in. Often we hear that practitioners don't even know about the services, and couldn't refer in even if they wanted to."
She added that other councils around the country were experiencing similar problems to Stoke-on-Trent.
Council leader Jane Ashworth, who chairs the health and wellbeing board, raised particular concern over the lack of progress in reducing the number of people misusing substances in town centres. She said: "It's very clear that the systems and practices that we're using at the moment are not doing their job. We have a problem across all the six towns, particularly I suspect in the city centre. As far as I can tell we're not really reducing the number of people who are substance abusing on the streets of the city centre."
The council has a rough sleeper drug and alcohol team, which had supported 177 people in the 12 months up to June 2024. Ms Yates said the team aimed to be 'proactive' in encouraging people to access treatment, but added that this was a difficult task.
She said: "There's such a high level of need, and people are so complex, it's quite a big job to get those people into treatment, because they're just not ready to engage. A lot of work goes on which isn't reflected in the numbers in treatment figure."
Peter Tomlin, director of adult social care, health integration and wellbeing, said there was also a need to get addicts into suitable housing - away from other addicts - and support them into employment, which would require a 'whole system approach'.
A raft of different services are being provided as part of the redesigned CDAS, which is being run by national organisation WithYou in partnership with BAC O'Connor. Provision includes increased access to treatment via outreach and co-location with other services such as adult social care and the youth offending service.
A 'recovering cafe', run mostly by people in recovery from drugs and alcohol, has been launched at Fenton Manor Leisure Centre, in order to provide employment opportunities and publicly demonstrate successful recovery. Staffordshire University has also been commissioned to carry out research into the use of synthetic cathinones such as monkey dust.