Monday/12/May 2008
Last week the Healthcare Commission and the NTA published their penultimate improvement review looking at the separate themes of Harm Reduction Services and Commissioning Systems. 
Scoring local areas from "weak" to "excellent" the review gives us some interesting information about the maturity of our commissioning systems and the effectiveness of harm reduction implementation and planning, but does the inspection report raise more questions than it answers?
Read More...Tags: Healthcare Commission, Harm Reduction, DaTs, NTA, Commissioning
Monday/28/Apr 2008
The Department of Health Reducing Drug Related Harm Action Plan is coming up to its first birthday in a couple of weeks.

How much have we achieved since its publication and what can that tell us about the state of harm reduction in the UK?
Read More...Tags: Harm Reduction, Treatment, Drug Strategy, CSR, HIV, Drug Related Death, Blood Borne Viruses, Tackling Drugs
Friday/18/Apr 2008
"Of course the general public do not currently on the whole understand that maintenance is a positive intervention and of course they think the ideal is getting people off drugs and away from addiction altogether. That’s because largely we don’t ever bother explaining it."

I've just taken part in the Drugscope and Conference Consortium Great Debate looking at the issues around the resurgence of the abstinence vs maintenance arguments.
You can download Mike Ashton's article, 'The new abstentionists', here.
A number of people have asked for a copy of my speech, so I’m blogging it for them and anyone else who's interested.
Comments below or email me using the "get in touch link" on the main page.
Read More...Tags: Treatment, New abstentionists
Friday/28/Mar 2008
Confused about what the nuts and bolts of the new strategy might mean for your services or your partnership?
Read More...Tags: Training, Workshop, New strategy, DaTs, providers
Friday/14/Mar 2008
Its out - the LDPF Interim Update to the Guide to the National Drug Strategy.

Produced by the LDPF and supported by the RSA, this update to the blue guide published last year provides some ideas about integration of your local drug strategy in the broader LAA agenda, and looks at the implications of the new strategy for local partnerships.
Read More...Tags: Drug Strategy, LAAs, Local Partnerships, DaTs, reintegration, 198
Wednesday/27/Feb 2008
The new drug strategy has been published today.

Its a mixed bag with some great new focus on reintegration and mainstreaming, but also a worrying lack of detail about harm reduction, drug related deaths and blood born viruses. More than a touch of the manse maybe in the emphasis on drug free communities ....?
Read More...Tags: New Drug strategy, Home Office, uk drug policy, reintegration
Saturday/12/Jan 2008
The announcement of a reduced Pooled Treatment Budget and a new formula for allocation that sees some areas lose millions of pounds over the next three years has upset many in the English drugs field.

But why has the allocations system changed, what information are they using to work out what different areas get and what's it going to mean for services, service users and communities?
Read More...Tags: Drug Treatment, Pooled Treatment Budget, Spending Cuts, Drug Treatment, NTA
Friday/04/Jan 2008
Part two of the best and worst of 2007 - including the National Drug Strategy Consultation, The Big Book of Drug Policy from the Conservatives, The Little Book of Legalisation from Transform Drug Policy Foundation and THAT Today programme interview ... Read More...Tags: DaTs, Drug Policy, National Drug Strategy, Annual Review, DIP, NTA, Home Office, Today programme, Poverty and Exclusion
Saturday/29/Dec 2007
Part one of a review of the high - and low - lights of the past year. Including the Pooled Treatment Budget increase that wasn't, capital investment in tier 4, the Harm Reduction Action Plan and the Drug Strategy Consultation plus much much more ribald and unbuttoned fun from the wacky world of drug policy .... part two next week.
(Thanks to The Daily Dose and Drink and Drugs News for their impeccably kept online archives - without them I would have had to make it all up ... then again, you couldn't really could you?)
Read More...Tags: DaTs, Drug Policy, National Drug Strategy, Alcohol, TOPs, DIP, NTA, Home Office
Wednesday/12/Dec 2007
A new agreement that devolves power away from Whitehall down to Local Partnerships is going to make a huge difference to the way government works. But why has the Drug Strategy been left out of this important piece of work and what have the people in Government who are meant to promote joined up solutions to drug problems been doing about it? Read More...Tags: Concordat, DaTs, LAA, 198, LGA, CLG
Tuesday/11/Dec 2007
Some pretty creative work around drug - and particularly - alcohol use has been funded by the Neighbourhood Renewal Fund (NRF) up and down the country over the past few years. Projects looking at regeneration, workskills - and in some of the most creative partnerships - essentially the elements of treatment we know should be in place but which simply weren't fundable through the pooled treatment budget - like workplace mentoring and advocacy schemes.
But in 2008, NRF ends. I know a lot of projects I've been talking to are worried that their funding won't be replaced by mainstream monies or by drug specific spend. There's a feeling too that no one is really putting pressure on local partnerships engaged in regeneration to think about drugs after NRF.Well the Government has announced its replacement for NRF. Its called
The Working Neighbourhoods Fund (WNF) and its going to be available to local partnerships (that is Local Strategic Partnerships*) in the most deprived areas to support initiatives that increase enterprise and get more people back into work. There's £1.5 billion going to 86 areas across England. The areas getting WNF were announced on the 6th December.
Read More...Tags: Information, employment, NRF, Skills and Training, social inclusion, Working Neighbourhoods Fund, DaTs, reintegration
Wednesday/28/Nov 2007
Last week on the last day of the ACPO conference, the Home Office released 8 separate research briefings covering drug issues. Below is an overview of some of the key points plus links to more commentary from others where I've found it. These are just my initial pick-ups on a first quick read of the reports. I'll have missed loads of interesting stuff I imagine, so if what I've grabbed whets your appetite, I've put links in to all the full documents. Read More...Tags: DIP, arrestees survey, prevalence, evaluation, "Tough Choices", blueprint, Drug Harm Index, Fun With Numbers
Thursday/22/Nov 2007
More on those pesky Local Government Indicators for those of you for whom the anorak is just a second skin...
To remind you, these are the indicators that will sit at the heart of the LAA, the CAA and the SCS (That's the Local Area Agreement, The Sustainable Communities Strategy and the Comprehensive Area Assessment - the divine troika of local partnership planning, measurement and delivery). Read More...Tags: LAA, Indicators , Consultation, public Administration, Drug Policy, Local Government, Public Adminsitration, Drug Policy, 198
Monday/12/Nov 2007
Its one of those anorak moments - the Department for Communities and Local Government has today opened a consultation on the indicators for the new performance management framework for Local Government.
Read More...Tags: 198, DaTs, LGA, LAAs, LAA, Local Partnerships
Saturday/10/Nov 2007
You might have just missed it, but in the Queens Speech last week was the announcement of the long awaited Health and Social Care White Paper to merge the current regulatory bodies - CSCI, The Healthcare Commission and The Mental Health Act Commission into a single organisation called The Care Quality Commission. Read More...Tags: public service regulation, drug policy, healthcare