Yesterday the NTA facilitated a meeting of stakeholders of the residential rehabilitation sector: commissioners, providers, EATA and others to discuss the challenges the sector is facing. 

The NTA’s priority remains increasing the capacity and effectiveness of drug treatment in England, making sure that every drug user who needs help can get appropriate and effective support quickly to aid recovery. Residential services have a significant role to play in this, but their utilisation has not kept pace with the expansion of community treatment. 

The meeting was held to facilitate discussion about why this might be, about existing barriers to the successful integration of residential services into local systems and how the needs of service users can best be met and identified in a context where the residential sector is adapting to significant change in drug treatment. 

A constructive and wide-ranging discussion resulted in a number of steps being identified for activity, in addition to the actions already taken by the NTA. These pre-existing activities include a joint service review of residential services with the Healthcare Commission; £56.4m of additional capital funding for residential treatment and inpatient detox; an ongoing assurance at local level of appropriate rates of access to the various treatment interventions which reflects the much greater emphasis that the NTA expects of drug partnerships on recovery. 

Key points agreed:  

-     Establishing which individuals, in what circumstances, are most likely to benefit from residential treatment. This information will enable clinicians to make the best use of the treatment options available, commissioners to have a more accurate picture of the need for residential treatment in their area, and providers to plan their businesses according to the user need that exists.

 -     The need for a much more comprehensive survey of the capacity and occupancy of residential treatment in England, and recognition that the failure to report to the National Drug Treatment Monitoring System by a substantial minority of residential providers is undermining attempts to understand the value that residential treatment can provide and the outcomes being achieved.

 -    To improve the consistency of integration of residential services into mainstream local treatment system, so that where residential services are deemed appropriate for an individual, the route to access them is clearer and any structural barriers relating to funding or placement are identified and addressed.

The strong consensus from the meeting was that the question of how to make the best use of residential rehabilitation is part of a wider ambition to pursue a drug treatment system which values long term recovery, emphasising progress through treatment as much as continuing to improve access to effective treatment. 

In 2010 the NTA will be continuing its major programmes of work to drive forward improvements to the drug treatment system in England so that more people can continue to recover from drug dependency and go on to be reintegrated back into society. These improvements will include placing residential treatment in the mainstream of its work to support recovery. 

Plans discussed to address the key points raised will start with a survey of capacity and the study of need, and a new residential services directory to be launched in March 2010. The new directory will combine the previous services of BEDVACS and the service directory to improve the information that is available to users, clinicians and commissioners about where and how to access the provision that does exist, and provide a useful marketing tool to the provider sector.  

The NTA’s objective remains delivering effective treatment for the individual and for the communities they are part of, and advocates a balance of treatment options to support this.

Links to existing support from the NTA for Tier 4 (residential rehabilitation and inpatient detoxification) providers is available at:

- Joint service review by the NTA and the Healthcare Commission into the effectiveness of residential provision

- A summary of good practice learning from the joint service review: ‘Residential services for drug treatment: good practice from the field’

- Announcements of capital funding to build the capacity and quality of Tier 4 services

- current BEDVACS directory