Agendas, Meetings and Minutes - Agenda item

Agenda item

Strategic Substance Misuse Oversight Group Annual Report

Minutes:

Alcohol was one of the priorities in the Joint Health and Well-being Strategy and the strategy mentioned that the County should commission effective services. The Substance Misuse Oversight Group was responsible to the HWB as well as the Safer Communities Board. The Board had previously been concerned at the reduction in funding for some of the contracts which supported substance misuse but the presentation would detail that services had not been adversely affected. Rosie Winyard gave the presentation.

 

The Oversight Group was made up of commissioners and providers and had the objectives of providing oversight and leadership in the County, ensure specialist advice was provided, consider learning arising from serious incidents, support delivery of a range of strategic plans and through engagement with providers and service users assist with market shaping.

 

The Group considered various issues and give advice on strategy such as the National Alcohol Strategy and the Drug Strategy. Performance reports were considered by the group using the national drug treatment monitoring system and quality issues were considered by looking at CQC reports.

 

Some of the issues considered at the quarterly meetings were Children and young people, GP shared care, criminal justice, drug and alcohol strategies and evidence reviews. The Blue Light project brought together a range of groups and helped people with long term alcohol problems. Various task and finish groups had considered individual topics in more depth such as criminal justice, residential rehab, employment and accommodation. One group considered people who had co-morbid long term mental health issues along with alcohol mis-use.

 

Swanswell was a specialist drug and alcohol service which provided interventions and various other services such as accreditation for GP practices who had specific expertise in substance mis-use. The staff had been able to encourage people they dealt with who had substance mis-use problems to seek treatment for physical or mental health issues. Swanswell also had a dedicated children and families service and carers support.

 

Links between the Substance Misuse service and other services such as the acute trust, children and young people's services, homeless services and prisons were important to their success as was their peer mentor and volunteer service.

 

Swanswell had been commissioned in Worcestershire since 2015 and were now part of Cranstoun. 30 GP practices provided shared care in Worcestershire and 100 pharmacies offered services. The amount of funding available to Swanswell had reduced by 12.5% during the contract however due to their successful performance the contract had been extended to 2020.

 

The benefits of drug and alcohol treatments were £4 social return for every £1 invested in drug treatments and £3 social return for every £1 invested in alcohol treatments.

 

Following the presentation the following points were made:

·       Action was generally taken once people reached a specific threshold, however Swanswell did provide targeted services to people at a lower threshold where advice and information could be provided. Prevention work concentrated on young people and they made visits into schools and co-ordinated work with the Children and Young People's services,

·       The use of drugs and alcohol were coping mechanisms and it was recognised that the wider issue was to help or support people before they got to the stage of relying on drugs or alcohol; for example the 5 Ways to Well-being

·       Homelessness was also an issue linked to drug and alcohol use and the work on ACEs was recognised as being important preventative work in all those areas

·       Although there were a variety of great initiatives in Worcestershire, Board members were concerned in case there was duplication of efforts. The prevention work of all partners needed to be co-ordinated,

·       Help in one area of the system such as reducing homelessness contributed to prevention in other areas of the system,

·       It was good that shared care provision allowed people to access specialist care through their normal GP practice,

·       It was pointed out that the improved service provision coming after a 12% reduction in budget should be celebrated as it proves service transformation was possible.

 

RESOLVED that the Health and Well-being Board noted the report of the Strategic Substance Misuse Oversight Group and consider any points which may inform the future work of the HWB.

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