Drugs workers and service employers hold the key to delivering a treatment system more sharply focussed on drug users overcoming addiction as soon as they are able, NTA Chief Executive, Paul Hayes, said today at the Crime Reduction Initiative's (CRI) Towards Sustainable Change staff conference in London.

 

Speaking to some of the 1500 staff from one of the biggest providers of drug treatment in England, Mr Hayes, said:

 

“Treatment services are clearly responding to the call to move users through treatment into recovery from addiction as soon as it is safe to do so – this year a record 24,656 people left treatment in England free of addiction, which is almost double the rate of a few years ago.

 

“So recovery is happening, and it’s happening in services like yours, as well as in other settings around the country. That is a testament to the dedication of thousands of individuals who are working with drug users to help them overcome their dependency and minimise the harms their drug addiction causes both to themselves and to others.

 

“But whilst critics of drug treatment have perhaps overlooked the significant achievements of the sector in growing and meeting the challenge laid out some years ago, there is a truth in the notion that services have not been as focused on getting people to get off drugs whilst the priorities, with good reason, were getting people into treatment and keeping them there.

 

“CRI, and other providers, are well placed to build on the solid foundations of what has been achieved so far in order to make drug treatment even more effective for the thousands who need it. It is becoming clearer that the most important feature of whether treatment is successful or not is how well a service is organised and managed, rather than what type of treatment intervention they receive. This makes you as workers and service managers absolutely key in the drive to support more people to recover and rehabilitate from chaotic lives.

 

“The NTA is working with CRI and others to make this ambition a reality – not just for the few or for the best services – but for everybody accessing drug treatment on the NHS in England.”

 

In July the NTA set up a national Skills Consortium, bringing practitioners and providers of drug treatment together with the NTA to improve the skills and expertise of workers, in a sector which has grown considerably in a short space of time.

 

The NTA has also developed a number of tools for workers to assist them in the delivery of psychosocial interventions which aim to tackle an individual’s dependency.