Healthcare professionals and partners

Overview of the Drug System Change Pilots evaluation

The National Treatment Agency for Substance Misuse on behalf of the Home Office and the Department for Health has commissioned an evaluation of the seven Drug System Change Pilots. A collaboration led by the National Centre for Social Research is conducting the evaluation which involves three components:   

• qualitative in-depth interviews with key stakeholders, delivery staff and service users in each of the pilot areas
• quantitative analysis of outcomes data that will use statistical techniques to compare pilot areas and carefully selected comparison areas to assess the impact of the pilots on key outcomes
• an economic component led by the University of York which will provide evidence to help assess the costs of the pilots in relation to their outcomes.

The evaluation adopts a formative approach, which aims to improve pilot development and delivery by providing ongoing feedback and support during the lifetime of the pilot.

Objectives of the evaluation

The evaluation has a number of key objectives. These are to:

• describe the range, scale and nature of activities, key components of system change and outputs of each pilot area
• develop measures and assess the outcomes and impacts for each pilot area, and for the pilot programme as a whole, including the relationship between project costs and outcomes for each pilot area
• assess the strategic and operational fit of the pilots programme within the local/regional environment and within the wider policy environment
• identify innovation and good practice, and work with pilot partnerships to share and embed good practice
• provide comparisons between pilot partnership areas, and also with some non-pilot partnership areas.