A New Government – Will this bring new Addiction Treatment Policies?
Now that we have a new Government, when will the Army of Civil Servants and Public Sector Administrators within the Addictions Industry be swept away by the forthcoming cuts?
Will the NTA and Drug and Alcohol Action Teams be served notice to quit – and how will previously agreed budgets be revamped and change main line services? Will the Tory / Liberal Coalition keep the bureaucrats under a different name / organisation – how will public addictions policies change?
Will more hard cash reach front line services and will priority health / treatment objectives be considered to be more important nowadays – instead of the longstanding crime prevention agendas championed by the outgoing Government, the NTA and their friends? Will the Addictions Services miss the removal of Strategic Health Authorities?
Will the Private Sector and Social Enterprise movement get a look-in when seeking Public Sector contracts?
We now live in interesting times and await answers to these questions with interest!
Whenever a new party takes over government there are sure to be many changes. This is also true in the United States. Usually you can forecast what a parties particular agenda is and if they are sympathetic to a cause or policy. However the addiction industry helps conservatives and liberals alike. Treatment for drug addicts reduces crimes, which the conservatives like, and it also gets individual the help they need, which the liberals will go for. In other words I think that treatment for addicts is safe no matter who is in office.
I work in the public sector and one of the ex HEO managers is the new drug engagement mandarin for the NE – not they know anything of social problems. What they do know is statistics, targets and compliance with senior management. So for now we are being bombarded with requests to refer to the same old failed providers of rehab etc. The mind set is how much is wished to achieve for a lot of peoples well paid jobs are dependant upon social ailments of certain groups. Addiction does not in itself fuel crime it is the wider social disparities which are the foundations. The biggest and most leniently sentenced crimes are associated with wealthy persons. Who do you suppose is going to pay for the ‘gambling’ of the banks. Treatment is not safe there has been ongoing attempts to link it to certain programmes of work, and the demonising of replacement therapy within our budget forcasts. Why should we pay for treatment and benefits when we dont control the person is the message I hear every day. the fact that the treatment and programmes do not deliver the outcomes is forgotten
I am not certain that all the Public Sector agencies such as the National Treatment Agencies and Drug (and Alcohol) Action Teams will survive – and many of us will have no tears for them. The NTA (National Treatment Agency)) have shown breath-taking arrogance in ignoring many private sector and charitable agencies. The DAATS (Drug and Alcohol Action Teams) play lip service to user involvement – Good ridance to them. The costs of public sector bureaucratic expenditure dwarfed the amount spent on rehab centres etc.
I am not a Tory but I hope that this new Coalition Government embraces a radicalism that centres on health and recovery. Let’s have more people with practical experience involved in the governance of Drug and Alcohol Rehab Centres.
Sorry but the demonising of the public services seems to be alive and well. There maybe a large governance and involvement of ‘bureaucrats’ a lot of whom have their own social and addictive problems. The only persons with the ‘credentials’ and holistic support structures for governance and practical experience in place is in fact the NHS, they are called Doctors and Nurses who have a range of experience in managing treatment delivery not the state and charitable institutions. Whilst these have a valuable contributory role if public finance is involved then it is naive to think that some measure of control and involvement is not going to be attached. The government has been radical on health and recovery (though the ideology aimed at is not one I subscribe to) why are there moves to deny benefits if you are not ‘in treatment’ or have not demonstrated a willingness to reform. These ideas have enjoyed cross party support for a while – careful what you wish for as at the moment referral is ‘voluntary’ but that is easily bypassed and then sanctions applied. The pattern is clear media demonisation and miss information of the vulnerable Incapacity benefit, single parents etc, civil servants, public sector. Then the moves to reduce and penalise those sectors of society who are castigated to reduce costs. There is already the wording in the budget of more stringent medical tests – to weed out the ‘undeserving’ not really based on medical criteria but ideological drivers. If money was truly to be recouped then the introduction of the Robin Hood tax on banking transactions and efforts made to gather in the £120 billion in unpaid taxes per year would go some way to alleviate financial problems (we should all be signing up for and requesting MP’s to impose these) (instead the government has been and is trying to get rid of tax collectors 30,000 staff have gone from HMRC in 2 years) then funding would be available for use on the ground and elsewhere.
Posted on the Addiction Today Blog 06 07 10
We hope that the new Coalition Government will examine the need for more treatment and recovery programmes. Our view, as a small social enterprise comprising of recovering alcoholics, drug addicts and “carers” is that the Public Sector – including the NTA and many DAATS has been an unmitigated bureaucratic disaster. Iain Duncan Smith is correct in his call for change.
We look forward to the drug and alcohol addictions agenda moving to deal with more health related issues for those who need help. People with drug and alcohol dependency problems need affordable, effective and confidential help -and that should be easily accessed. The maze of bureaucracy people have to deal with makes this recovery process hard to access.
We observe the debate with great interest. The NTA are still planning new conferences for the autumn of 2010 – perhaps they think that they are safe from the Chancellor’s axe?
Now is the time to change …
Having read the comments to date here and elsewhere I am struck by the impression that there will be some redistribution of finances from the public to the private sector. Sorry for the rant but. The ‘big society’ being mooted will see charties and private companies shoulder more of the burden in the care delivery sector but with little of the resource support. It is not I fear about those who need and should receive help.
This government and the last is ideologically driven that to get persons onto the lowest benefit (of which there will eventually only be two forms one being JSA the lowest paid) being ‘job ready’ and if not able to prove that they are complying then sanctions will apply. I worry that GP’s will be given the vast form of funding to deliver these schemes with one eye on profit and one on contractual obligations to the state. Remember as now the money follows the patient and it will be increasingly hard for super practices as applied for 6 years ago to see cash go outside. Charities may well find themselves cast in the role of well meaning volunteers. Recent times displayed this in the welfare rights provision – funding was cut to independant organisations and transferred to local authorities result a vastly inferior and hard to access service for those requiring it. Last week at a union meeting I heard Tessa Jowel reported as stating that we had to resist the cuts from these persons and she like colleagues were fully supportive of us. Hang on not so long ago Tessa was the person pushing through the cuts and refusing to speak to us. Perhaps struggling with power withdrawl ! I worry that divisiveness along social lines will be deeper, lawlessness will increase as less police and deterents. Interesting watching question time as the country was refered to as bankrupt (just before MP’s go on a twelve week paid break) – who’s country theirs or ours are they refering to?