Agenda item

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 across health, social care, and the voluntary sector.

We need to be designing these services with those groups that are high risk we cannotjust make suggestions about what works for them, and that integration approachactually takes time, but we won't get the service side we need unless we can do that.

Mike Bridges took the EAP through a considerable amount of information regardingnot only adults with drug and alcohol problems but children who either had issues orlived with parents who had issues. Work needed to be done in schools and businessesto make people understand and to try and assist even those who did not think theyhad a problem.

Councillor Harrison raised the point that perhaps what was required was that thereneeded to be a service that embraced both mental health and drug and alcohol abuserather than having mental health services and drug and alcohol services.

CouncillorMarks said that the drugs and alcohol seemed to come first with children due to peerpressure then the mental health issues followed.Mike Bridges outlined 2 possible options subject to discussion at the meeting, he wentthrough the slides showing the advantages and disadvantages of both options andasked the EAP to advise which option was preferred. Members agreed that theirpreferred option was Option 1.

Option 1:To extend and align prevention, treatment, and recovery service contracts to March2026 with caveat of contract variations.Contract extension will enable us to do full co-production that we want to do andworking with people with experiences, working with families, community engagement, professional networks and helping us shape services that fit, and again, it gives us the ability to align our prevention, treatment, and recovery services as well. All of thiswould assist in shaping the service going forward.Councillor McGhee had concerns as there were issues, he suggested there should betalks with residents to see what they felt was needed and perhaps a Hotline so thatcallscould be made anonymously regarding drugs and alcohol issues (It was confirmedthat the police operate a system forreporting concerns).

JointCommissioning was also important, this was not something that was being done. Oneother concern was that those who had gone into rehab were coming back out andstraight back to the same place, this was not acceptable, these people needed to havesomewhere to go away from the problems they had previously.
Discussion was had regarding Voluntary Services, they needed to be recognised, theyhad good local knowledge. There was a need to know how responsive referrals wouldbe, how progress would be sustained and support with work and housing.

ACTION: Mike Bridges advised that the service was quite responsive, and he would provide more detail on that.

ACTION: A request to bring back information on County Lines was made.

ACTION: Regular updates and place on Forward Plan.