Agenda item

Report of the Director of Community and Children’s Services.

The Board received the report updating Members on the status of the City’s drug and alcohol services review. The early stages of the review had included an examination of the evidence and policy surrounding substance misuse and analysis of the current spend on different elements of the service.

Officers informed the Board that the key outcomes of the review to date were as follows:

• There was a need to focus on prevention of drug and alcohol misuse as

well as on treatment of entrenched users.

• There was potential to link the drug and alcohol misuse service with other

addictions services, for example smoking and gambling.

• There was potential to link the drug and alcohol misuse service with other

risk-taking behaviours, particularly for City workers.

• There were inherent links between drug and alcohol misuse and mental

health services, and these should not be ignored. As such, it was

necessary that the service should have a ‘no wrong door’ policy, and

links across to mental health prevention and treatment services.

• The tobacco control programme review had been aligned to run in parallel to the drug and alcohol services review.

Members noted that while the City shared a Director of Public Health with the London Borough of Hackney, the medical needs of the two areas were very different with Hackney focussing on the residential population. Members also noted that there was a growing problem with addiction amongst the City population which needed to be addressed. Members noted that addiction could range from relying on painkillers to hard drugs. The Board noted that there were different levels of addiction and being labelled an ‘addict’ was still seen as taboo by the general public. Members agreed that the issue of addiction must be tackled sensitively.