Agenda and minutes

None on this occasion.

Apologies for absence were received from Councillors Chris Smith-Haynes and Helen Howell.

None on this occasion.

The minutes of the EAP meetings held on 9^th December 2022 and 3^rd February 2023 had been circulated.

RESOLVED that: - The minutes of 9^th December 2022 and 3^rd February 2023 be approved.

Chair advised that the EAP were going to be looking at drugs, treatment and recoveryservices in Northamptonshire and look at how to develop that policy going forward.

There had been a considerable amount of work done in the last year since theGovernment’s new policy on tackling drugs was released.Susan Hamilton, who is interim Director of Public Health, Shirley Plenderleith, AssistantDirector of Public Health and Mike Bridges, Public Health Consultant who had beenleading on the drugs and alcohol work primarily for North Northamptonshire.

Mike Bridges explained that the set of slides he would be using complimented thepaperwork sent out. He took the EAP through each slide briefly explaining there were3 main contracts with offices in Corby, Wellingborough, and Kettering.

The lead responsibility for commissioning drug and alcohol treatment and supportservices rest with local authorities. Investment into treatment and support services isthrough the public health grant. Currently the commissioning for drugs and alcoholtreatment and support services is led by the West Northants on behalf of bothNorthamptonshire Councils with an annual spend of £7.09m.

The new national drug and alcohol strategy was "from harm to hope", this includedadditional funding for drug and alcohol treatment and recovery systems, from 2023 to2025, Family Hubs, Youth Offer, Levelling up initiatives, Community WellbeingForums to inform and help shape the strategic priorities, Local Area Partnerships toprovide better engagement leading to better service design and a National drug andalcohol workforce development programme by Health Education England (HEE) tosupport retention, quality and capability.

Councillor Harrison asked if the SSMTRG grant was extra grant money on top of whatthere already was. Mike Bridges explained that recognition had prompted extra budgetwhich would allow enhancement and improvement as well as workforce capacity.

Susan Hamilton (Director of Public Health) confirmed that additional activity hadprompted the additional funding and in terms of percentage increase it wasconsiderable. The Assistant Director of Public Health (Shirley Plenderleith) advisedthat they were looking for a steer from the EAP as to how they would like to moveforward.

David Watts asked how this could be twin tracked and move really into that entity ofeducational approach whilst money was available and because we will not always havemoney, he had been in local government long enough to know that, secondly it was reallyabout the hard to reach people.

Members expressed concerns about those seeking treatment then drifting back into old ways, the success rate was about 4%, the extra money only brought things backto where they were years ago, we had the organisations in place but no extra money.

Mike Bridges explained that there was a specific criterion on how this grant was spent.It was agreed that if you identify people sooner, if you get that special support earlier,we do have quite a good opportunity here to look at our path and see where we canpick people up in a systematic way  ...  view the full minutes text for item 13.

David Watts explained that this was to focus on areas and bring in Assistant Directorsto outline what work was being done, these would not be completed articles, it was toallow the EAP to provide feedback on what was wanted.

Councillor Harrison suggested one item per meeting be presented so that a gooddiscussion could be had. There would be one meeting per year that brought thesmaller items for discussion.

Shirley Plenderleith said that this session had been really helpful.

Forward Plan would be populated by both Chairs and David Watts.

This would be included on the next Agenda.

Meeting closed at 11:55am.