David
I am
writing to you in the temporary absence of Annette (on holiday) but following a
discussion at our Senior Management Team.
The NTA
has been party to a certain amount of debate amongst colleagues in the Home
Office and the Department of Health about the government sponsorship of Daily
Dose. This came to a head recently when the service was closed for a week in
March with the fear that it may not reopen.
I have
to say that we at the NTA were disappointed that Daily Dose was shut down for
this period when you had been funded to provide the service until the end of the
financial year. I appreciate that you gave advance warning about the financial
situation, but we understood this was about the continuation of the service into
the 2009/10 financial year. It was something of a shock to discover a service
that had already been paid for suddenly terminated.
We
welcome the resumption of the service, and will honour our commitment to
providing funding this financial year. However, the shut-down provoked some
people to start asking questions, and others to suggest that they could step
into the breach to provide an alternative.
We note
that you can now only guarantee a Monday-Friday service. We read that DrugScope
has only guaranteed funding until September. We are also aware of the concerns
you have expressed about the instability of being reliant on ad hoc sponsorship.
You will also be aware of the concerns raised by the NTA in the past about the
relatively high profile given to Wired In blogs on the service.
All
this brings us to the conclusion that the next few months would be an
appropriate time to review the way forward, rather than waiting for the money to
run out again and for you to be forced to appeal for help. I’d welcome your
views.
I
understand you have previously rejected the idea of a subscription model – I’d
be interested to know your thinking on this. Also, I’d also appreciate any
information you could provide on the costs of maintaining Daily Dose. Do you
publish any accounts? I understand the NTA supplied £50,000 last year as a
one-off and wonder if there is a breakdown of how this money was spent. I
appreciate that there may be confidentiality issues around funding you receive
from other organisations, but as we are dealing with public funds we have to be
accountable for what we spend and ensure we get value for money.
The NTA
values Daily Dose and the independent news service it provides to the treatment
sector, and we are keen to do what we can to preserve this important
communications tool for the network of users, practitioners and providers who
have come to rely on it.
Happy
to discuss,
Jon
Director of Communications
National Treatment
Agency
6th
Floor, Skipton House
www.nta.nhs.uk
Effective treatment.
Changing lives.