Over the course of the next year the NTA will be seeking to refocus the drug treatment system in England on delivering sustained recovery and demonstrating transparent outcomes, while consistently providing more for less.
Ministers have approved an NTA business plan for 2010-11 that reflects the priorities of the government, the commitments in the coalition agreement, and the financial constraints facing the taxpayer.
The new direction of travel follows the announcement that from April 2012 the NTA will cease to be a separate organisation and its functions will be transferred into the proposed new Public Health Service.
Further details about how the Public Health Service will operate are expected to be set out in a White Paper on public health later this year. At the same time the government is reviewing the Drug Strategy, and is expected to set out its distinctive vision after the outcome of the comprehensive spending review in the autumn.
Meanwhile, the NTA has been given a clear mandate to ensure that successful completion and rehabilitation is an achievable aspiration for the majority of individuals in treatment, while continuing to provide the substantial crime reduction and health benefits that treatment currently brings to communities.
Key themes of the Plan include: improving outcomes for those in treatment; providing better value for money from central investment; championing abstinence-focussed treatment; and rebalancing the system to ensure a consistent approach to commissioning community and residential rehabilitation.
These objectives will be reflected in an explicitly recovery-oriented blueprint for the treatment system to replace the current framework, Models of Care for Treatment of Adult Drug Misusers, last updated in 2006.
The NTA will be consulting with clinicians, practitioners and providers to ensure that any changes are underpinned by the latest evidence and best practice.
For example, to help make the treatment system more dynamic, Prof John Strang of the National Addiction Centre has kindly agreed to chair an expert group to develop new clinical protocols for substitute prescribing in the community.
This is to ensure service users do not drift into long-term maintenance prescribing by default, without sufficient effort being made to promote beneficial change in their lives.
Dr David Best of the University of the West of Scotland will be working with the expert group to segment the treatment population in a way that enables commissioners and providers to signpost clients towards the right package of care-planned treatment to promote their recovery.
To read more about our ambition for recovery that meets the needs of all service users and their families, see the business plan in full.