Agenda item

Report from the Strategic Director of Adult Care, Housing and Public Health.

Recommendations:

1.    That Cabinet accept the grant funding and approve the approach to management of the grant.

2.    That Cabinet agree the 3-year outlined grant plan, and to receive an annual update.

3.    That Cabinet note that at present there is a national expectation that this is the first 3 years of a 10-year national strategy but there is no certainty of funding beyond 2025.

4.    That the proposal to continue to be part of the Yorkshire and The Humber regional consortium is agreed as the method of accepting the inpatient detoxification grant from OHID.

Consideration was given to the report which set out the proposal for the Drug and Alcohol Grant which had been made available to Rotherham as one of 50 accelerator areas in England by the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities (OHID).

Rotherham had been identified by the OHID for the first wave of enhanced funding starting in 2022/23. This was due to a combination of qualifying factors including deprivation and performance against the Public Health Outcome Framework (PHOF) indicators on ‘exits’ – people who leave treatment with a positive outcome and do not return for at least 6 months. This area had been in the Council plan for some time and had struggled to recover to pre-Pandemic levels, which were already lower than national and regional rates.

The funding being made available was outlined in paragraph 1.3 of the report. For 2022/23, Rotherham had been allocated £588,722 (Supplemental Substance Misuse Treatment and Recovery Grant and £64,077 (Inpatient Detoxification Grant.) The Inpatient Detoxification Grant would remain the same for 2023/24 and 2024/25 but the Supplemental Substance Misuse Treatment and Recovery Grant would increase to £1,128,463 for 2023/24 and to £2,178,186 for 2024/25.

All 4 South Yorkshire areas were in the first 50 identified which would offer additional opportunities for collaboration and Integrated Care System (ICS) level developments. Receipt of funding was dependent on maintaining existing (2020/21) investment in drug and alcohol treatment from the Public Health Grant which also has to be included in the Plan which was attached as Appendix One. The current understanding was that OHID anticipate the funding to continue after the initial 3 years in line with the target in the 10-year strategy, but this would be dependent on performance.

The allocation of £64,077 per year was also available for 3 years to fund specialist placements for Rotherham residents who require to be admitted as inpatients to undergo detoxification from alcohol or drugs. This grant was initially made available as a one-off in 2021/22 with Rotherham joining a consortium of Yorkshire and Humber local authorities to commission additional capacity in the system. This was agreed by Officer Decision on the 20th September, 2021, with Doncaster agreeing to receive the funding on behalf of the consortium. It was proposed that Rotherham continues to work with the regional consortium to block purchase capacity and work collaboratively on capacity issues with the neighbouring authorities. Further conditions would be set out in a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Doncaster Metropolitan Borough Council (DMBC). Under that MOU, Doncaster would make a sub-grant to Rotherham of some of the funds which Doncaster receives from central Government. This MOU covers issues of insurance and liability for all parties and will be reviewed by Legal Services when received. Rotherham was not expected to enter into any kind of grant agreement with central Government.

Section 2.2 of the report set out the high-level reporting requirements from the grant which included national targets of increasing treatment capacity by 20%; 2% of the treatment population attending rehabilitation; 75% of adults with substance misuse problems leaving prison are engaged with treatment and increasing the national workforce.

There was an expectation of a local delivery partnership which included partners from the Criminal Justice sector to ensure continuity of care, which would drive a local strategy/action plan. That has been set up and had now met twice with local delivery partnership members being given the opportunity to contribute to the plan.

Some of the key actions during Year One of the delivery plan were around building service demand and identification of unmet need. Others also focus on building programmes of activity that can be started independently of the tender.

Resolved:-

1.    That Cabinet accept the grant funding and approve the approach to management of the grant.

2.    That Cabinet agree the 3-year outlined grant plan, and to receive an annual update.

3.    That Cabinet note that at present there is a national expectation that this is the first 3 years of a 10-year national strategy but there is no certainty of funding beyond 2025.

4.    That the proposal to continue to be part of the Yorkshire and The Humber regional consortium is agreed as the method of accepting the inpatient detoxification grant from OHID.