Paul Hayes, Chief Executive, 3 February 2009

In the midst of the claims and counter claims made about different types of drug treatment – mainly substitute prescribing versus residential rehabilitation – there is a real danger that the bigger picture is being missed.

Drug treatment works. It is helping thousands of people to regain control over their lives, and it is helping to make families and communities safer. Now any young person or adult who needs drug treatment is far more likely to get it, and that message should not be lost as we debate the merits of the different routes to recovery.

That does not mean we can afford to be complacent about the current provision of drug treatment. The NTA’s priority is to improve the effectiveness of drug treatment, so that more and more people can live free from the harms caused by problematic drug use. Some of the ways we are doing this in 2009 are: 

• Working with service providers and commissioners to equip practitioners with the skills and tools needed to implement the evidence based interventions advocated by NICE and the clinical guidelines.
• Moving progressively to a fairer allocation of the pooled treatment budget (PTB) to match resources to need.
• Improving the quality of drug treatment in prison through the implementation of the Integrated Drug Treatment System in prison.
• Working with colleagues across government to learn how to better commission and deliver effective treatment through the System Change Pilots.
• Focussing on outcomes: using the first results of the vital Treatment Outcomes Profile (TOP) so that we measure and understand drug treatment on the basis of what it means to individual users.

There are significant challenges. Having greatly increased access to treatment, the focus is now on quality and moving users who are ready through treatment into recovery. No-one comes into drug treatment wanting to stay there for the rest of their lives, we know that, and drug workers and clinicians know that. So it is incumbent upon us to make sure that all is being done to open up the routes to recovery and reintegration.

But in banging the drum for one type of drug treatment, it is short-sighted to rubbish the other routes to recovery. In doing so, it knocks down the achievements services have already made, and places drug treatment on a much weaker platform for the future.