Urgent funding needed for young people ’ s services , says RCPsych
The Royal College of Psychiatrists ( RCPsych ) is calling on the government to invest more than £ 40m in young people ’ s addiction services to ‘ prevent lifelong addiction ’. The number of young people in treatment has fallen by 40 per cent since 2014-15 , it says , with funding cut by 37 per cent since 2013-14 .
Eight of the nine English regions have made ‘ real terms cuts ’, the college ’ s analysis says , with London losing £ 4.6m , the West Midlands £ 7.6m and the North West more than £ 9m , part of an overall total of £ 26m cut since 2013-14 . Meanwhile the number of young people accessing treatment across the period from April to January has dropped from almost 15,000
Smokers require care a decade earlier
SMOKERS IN ENGLAND WILL NEED HELP WITH EVERYDAY TASKS including ‘ dressing , walking across a room and using the toilet ’ ten years earlier on average , according to a report from ASH . Around 1.5m people need care by the age of 63 as a result of their smoking , says The cost of smoking to the social care system . While current smokers and people who quit within the last ten years are more likely to need support with all activities than people who have never smoked , they are ‘ particularly likely to need support with relatively time consuming , fundamental activities ’, says the report , such as help with dressing and undressing , having a bath or shower , or getting in and out of bed .
The annual cost to the country ’ s budget for home and residential adult care is around £ 1.2bn , the document adds , with more than 100,000 people thought to be receiving local authority-funded care as a result of smoking – 17,500 in residential care and 85,000 in their own homes . Smoking remains England ’ s leading cause of premature and preventable death , killing almost 75,000 people in 2019 . ‘ For every person killed by smoking , at least another 30 are estimated to be living with serious smoking-related disease and disability ,’ says ASH .
Report at ash . org . uk in 2014-15 to just under 9,000 in 2020-21 , although the college acknowledges this year ’ s figure could have been worsened by the pandemic .
Most young people accessing services do so for cannabis use , while almost half have a problem with alcohol – in 2018-19 there were more than 40,000 alcoholrelated hospital admissions among the under-24s , over a quarter of which were for mental and behavioural disorders due to alcohol use . RCPsych wants to see £ 43m of funding for local authorities allocated urgently to ‘ bring spending on youth addictions services back to at least the 2013- 14 level ’ – equivalent to 2.4 per cent of public health spending .
‘ These cuts risk condemning a generation of vulnerable young people with drug or alcohol problems to a lifetime of dependence and poor health , or in some cases , an early death ,’ said vice-chair of RCPsych ’ s addictions faculty , Dr Emily Finch . ‘ It ’ s completely unsustainable and unbelievably short-sighted . We
Bold policies needed
BOLD POLICIES SUCH AS DECRIMINALISATION AND CONSUMPTION ROOMS are needed to help reduce Scotland ’ s record rates of drug-related deaths , says a report from the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh . Among the document ’ s recommendations are for the Scottish and UK governments to give ‘ evidence-based consideration ’ to the decriminalisation of drug possession , and for politicians to work together constructively and listen to the views of those on the frontline . ‘ The political debate on Scotland ’ s drug deaths problem has been , at times , unhelpful ,’ it states , and stresses that crossparty consensus is essential , along with action to address socioeconomic factors such
Northern Ireland Drug Deaths 2009 – 2019 , www . nisra . gov . uk
' These cuts [ are ] completely unsustainable and unbelievably short-sighted .'
DR EMILY FINCH
need to wake up to the fact that money spent on addictions services saves the NHS a whole lot more in the long run , whether that ’ s in A & E or in other mental health services . On top of all this , the pandemic has made a dire situation even worse , as even more young people have been left unable to access services .’
as employment , housing and education .
Meanwhile , Northern Ireland has recorded its highest ever number of drug-related deaths , with 2019 ’ s figure of 191 more than double the figure from a decade ago . Almost half of the fatalities were of men aged between 25 and 44 , with almost all classed as resulting from drug misuse . People living in the most deprived areas were five times more likely to die a drug-related death than those in the least deprived .
Drug deaths in Scotland : an increasingly medical problem at www . rcpe . ac . uk ; Drugrelated deaths in Northern Ireland , 2009- 2019 at www . nisra . gov . uk
Female 30.4 %
Drug-related deaths by sex 2019
Male 69.6 %
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