News
GLASGOW CONSUMPTION
ROOM MOVES A STEP CLOSER
SMOKING STATS
THE PROPORTION OF ADULTS IN ENGLAND
WHO SMOKE HAS FALLEN to just over 15 per
cent, according to a report from NHS Digital,
ONS and PHE, down from just below 20 per
cent at the start of the decade. The largest fall –
from 26 per cent to 19 per cent – was among
18-24 year olds. The number of hospital
admissions attributable to smoking has
increased, however, from 458,000 in 2005-06 to
474,000 in 2015-16, and 16 per cent of all
deaths in England in 2015 were estimated to be
attributable to smoking. ASH said that while
the drop in smoking rates was ‘great news’,
smoking remained the leading cause of
preventable death. ‘One in two lifetime
smokers will die from smoking-related disease,
so a fall in smoking rates of this scale will save
4 | drinkanddrugsnews | July/August 2017
CHANGING TIMES
Millar. ‘Our aim is to
provide a route to
recovery for a group of
people often
disengaged from
support services.’
Public injecting
placed a ‘considerable’
financial burden on
the health, social care
and criminal justice
systems, she added.
‘Existing research
suggests the average
spend on health,
addictions, housing
and criminal justice
service for people in
Glasgow with
complex needs ranges
from £1,120 and
£3,069 per individual
per month. These
proposals are backed
SuSAnne MillAr
by evidence
indicating safer drug
consumption facilities not only improve health outcomes
for people who inject drugs, but are also highly cost
effective and contribute to savings for health and social
care services.’
Meanwhile, the Scottish Drugs Forum has launched
the final report of its expert working group on older
people with drug problems. Not only are this population
not engaged with treatment and at high risk of fatal
overdose, they will ‘increasingly become the norm’ in
services, says Older people with drug problems in
Scotland: addressing the needs of an aging population.
SDF document at www.sdf.org.uk
A REPORT PRESENTED TO THE GLASGOW CITY
INTEGRATION JOINT BOARD has identified a site for what
could be the UK’s first drug consumption room. The
board officially approved the development of a business
case for the facility late last year (DDN, November 2016,
page 4) and an engagement process will now be carried
out with the local community.
The proposed city-centre facility near the River Clyde
would also offer heroin-assisted treatment alongside
health and social care advice, peer support and
treatment referrals. Last year’s draft business case argued
that the combined consumption room and heroin-
assisted treatment could help reduce drug-related deaths
and blood-borne virus transmission, as well as public
injecting and drug-related offending. It could also
improve service engagement for people with complex
needs and reduce the burden on other health services.
The new report estimates the combined cost of the
con sumption room and heroin-assisted treatment at just
over £2.3m per year, to be part-funded by redirecting
existing resources of just under £900,000. The remaining
£1.4m would be met by ‘contingency funding for a period
of no more than three years’, says NHS Greater Glasgow
and Clyde.
The lifetime cost to the health service of Glasgow’s
newly diagnosed HIV cases among drug users since 2015 is
estimated at almost £30m, while a 2009 Scottish
Government research paper estimated the ‘total economic
and social costs attributable to illegal drug users’ in
Scotland at around £3.5bn. Heroin-assisted treatment
could potentially save almost £950,000 per year for every
30 people who access it, says the health board, with the
treatment available only to adult heroin-dependent
patients ‘with previous unsuccessful treatment episodes’.
‘The need for a safer consumption facility is about
improving the health of those involved in public injecting,’
said chief officer for strategy, planning and commissioning
at Glasgow City Community Health Partnership, Susanne
required to support people in reducing their
alcohol consumption.’
‘A safer
con sump tion
facility is about
improving
health.’
many thousands of lives in years to come,’ said
chief executive Deborah Arnott. Statistics on
smoking, England 2017 at www.gov.uk
A&E OVERSIGHT
NINE OUT OF TEN A&E DEPARTMENTS ARE
FAILING to identify young people with alcohol
problems, according to research by the
University of Surrey. A survey of nearly 150
departments found that young people were
not routinely asked about their alcohol
consumption or screened to identify those
needing help. ‘Ending up in A&E is often a
wake-up call for people and forces them to
assess their alcohol consumption,’ said lead
author Dr Robert Patton. ‘However this is not
always the case and sometimes involvement
from a health care professional is what is
ABOUT A QUARTER OF A BILLION PEOPLE USED
DRUGS IN 2015, according to UNODC’s World
drug report 2017, with around 29.5m engage