The Government is to spend an extra £421m to improve drug and alcohol addiction treatment and reduce pressure on the NHS.
The funding announced today will help the creation of over 50,000 ‘high-quality places’ in drug and alcohol treatment and will enable local authorities to recruit more staff to work with people with drug and alcohol problems.
A total of 151 local authorities across England are being allocated funding to ‘increase the quality and capacity of treatment and recovery services.’
Health secretary Steve Barclay said the investment was ‘crucial’ to provide people with high-quality support, and it will reduce pressure on the NHS by diverting people from addiction into recovery.
He said: ‘Drug misuse has a massive cost to society – more than 3,000 people died as a result of drug misuse in 2021.
‘This investment in treatment and recovery services is crucial to provide people with high-quality support, with services such as expanding access to life-saving overdose medicines and outreach to young people at risk of drug misuse already helping to reduce harm and improve recovery.
‘This funding will help us build a much improved treatment and recovery service, which will continue to save lives, improve the health and wellbeing of people across the country, and reduce pressure on the NHS by diverting people from addiction into recovery.’
The Government said that the funding is prioritised for areas ‘with the highest need’, based on the rate of drug deaths, deprivation, opiate and crack cocaine prevalence and crime, taking into account of the size of the treatment population.
The NHS Addictions Provider Alliance (APA) welcomed the investment.
Danny Hames and Kate Hall, NHS APA’s chair and vice-chair, said: ‘We hope that the additional £421 million funding allocated to local authorities across England will be utilised to shape a joined-up system that ensures everyone in need has equal access to high-quality care.
‘This cannot be achieved without partnership work across the sector, something that we are committed to doing as an alliance of NHS trusts, in a continued effort to reduce the rising number of drug-related deaths seen annually and positively change the lives of thousands of people.’
The institute asked service providers to ensure that ‘systems are in place’ for the use of validated alcohol questionnaires when asking people about their alcohol use.
It said that thousands of people asked each year could be missing out on brief interventions to help curb problem drinking, or a potential referral to specialist alcohol services.
