Agenda item

Response to Recommendations from Scrutiny Review- Drug and Alcohol Treatment and Recovery Services

Anne Charlesworth, Public Health, to present

Minutes:

Further to Minute No. 25 of the Cabinet and Commissioners Decision Making Meeting held on 6th August, 2018, Anne Charlesworth, Head of Public Health Commissioning, gave an update on the recommendations and corresponding actions arising from the Scrutiny Review of the Drugs and Alcohol Service Treatment and Recovery Services.

 

Rotherham’s new Adult Substance Misuse provider, Change, Grow, Live (CGL), had been providing the Service since 1st April, 2018.  Mobilisation from a client perspective had been very smooth, staff transferred from RDaSH to CGL and they had managed the Service very well.  Work was progressing on the pathways.

 

Monthly meetings were held with CGL to consider all the key performance indicators.  Progress so far had been steady, as had been requested, for the first 3 months.  6 clients had exited the Service positively in the first few weeks of the new contract due to being drug free.  It was now back to its normal 2/3 new clients a month.  CGL would now be looking in more detail of who now was ready to exit the Service.

 

Since the new Service started, there had been 8 deaths of clients in Service; 5 had died in Hospital as a result of long term conditions and not directly their substance misuse, 2 had died as a result of overdoses but not directly attributable to the drugs they were in receipt of from the Service and the Coroner’s verdict was awaited for the 8th.  None of the 8 clients would have been aged under 18 as the Service was for those aged 18 years and over; and there were none who were aged under 30.

           

The following update was given on each of the Review’s recommendations:-

 

1.           A full suite of Performance Indicators was to be submitted to the November Select Commission meeting

 

2.           As stated above, monthly meetings took place and so far progress was good

 

3.           More suicide prevention and self-harm work would take place as and when funds became available

 

4.           MECC training was going quite well; as of yesterday 215 people had attended the training so the alcohol message was getting out.  There was a clear pathway that those who received MECC training understood they also got Health Rotherham services as first point of contact but then  screening tool then referred people into CGL

 

5.           As mentioned at a previous meeting, drugs and alcohol soft marketing testing had taken place but needed to ensure that it happened in all the commissioning.  Work was taking place with procurement to make it part and parcel of what agencies did

 

6.           There was a new pathway around notification of death.  A concern from the NHS, if the Service was no longer a NHS Service, was that it would stop some level of scrutiny, however, CGL reported all deaths on the national template, did their own death investigation and were reporting deaths to the CQC, Public Health and the Head of Service for Safeguarding, so a decision could be made as to brief the Adult Safeguarding Board about them.  There would be a written pathway by the end of September

 

7.           CGL’s processes around risk assessment for suicide were very thorough and nationally agreed.  They had supplied them to Authority and were to meet with RDaSH and ensure that all bases were covered.  Both RDaSH and CGL’s processes followed NICE Guidance.  It would form part and parcel of the pathway that was currently being agreed

 

8.           Safety and safeguarding had already been touched upon.

 

Discussion ensued with the following issues raised/clarified:-

 

-                   Had consideration been given to using Ward-based funding rather than the Community Leadership Fund? This would be fed back.

 

-                   £500K had been awarded to South Yorkshire and Bassetlaw Integrated Care System for suicide prevention work.  It was understood that some progress had been made on the devolved monies and what it could be spent on but no specific details as yet, however, Rotherham had been a warded an allocation

 

-                   Hellaby Ward had ordered the posters that contained the helpline number for people to ring and the beer mats.  They were to be distributed on the Hellaby Industrial Estate

 

-                   What type of treatment was a client offered?  Were they get referred to the Consultant?  The CGL Service was a clinical service headed up by a Consultant Psychiatrist.  Clients received the same level of clinical assessment as they would have previously.  Work was taking place to agree the boundary of when someone’s problem became more Mental Health than substance misuse which agency they should access to remove any uncertainty as to which Service should be leading that package of care

 

Resolved:-  That the response to the recommendations of the Scrutiny Review of Drug and Alcohol Treatment and Recovery Services be noted.

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