Last month saw the publication of the first-ever national drug and alcohol treatment and recovery workforce census . Compiled by Health Education England ( HEE ) and the NHS Benchmarking Network ( NHSBN ), and based on impressive response rate of more than 80 per cent , the census covers the workforce for local authority-commissioned drug and alcohol services , local authority ( LA ) commissioning teams and LEROs in the year to 30 June 2022 – the first time the information has been gathered on anything like this scale . The census report was commissioned as part of OHID and HEE ’ s drug and
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alcohol treatment and recovery workforce transformation programme in response to Dame Carol Black ’ s Independent review of drugs and the 2021 drug strategy , and will be used to help HEE work collaboratively with its partners to inform future planning and investment .
THE STATS There were almost 11,500 ‘ wholetime equivalent ’ ( WTE ) treatment provider staff and just under 400 commissioning staff in 2022 , the document states . Almost half of the entire treatment provider staff were drug and alcohol workers , with the other half including 23 per cent working in service management and admin , 10 per cent in peer support and service user development , and 9 per cent
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who were nurses . Three quarters of drug and alcohol services staff were working in the voluntary sector , followed by 15 per cent working in the NHS and 4 per cent in LA-delivered treatment . Three per cent were working in the independent or private sector , with 2 per cent working for LEROs .
Almost two thirds of the treatment provider workforce were female , with 84 per cent of staff on permanent contracts and 69 per cent working full time . Twelve per cent were unpaid volunteers , meanwhile , and there were 684 WTE peer support workers across the workforce .
Ten per cent of staff overall reported a disability , although this was lower for the NHS and LA sectors at 7 and 5 per
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cent respectively . The median percentage of staff who consider themselves part of the LGBTQ + community was 2 per cent .
A quarter of the overall workforce were on salary band 5 (£ 22k-31k ) with another quarter on band 6 (£ 32-39k ). In the voluntary and independent / private sectors , however , around 80 per cent of the workforce were on band 5 or below , compared to approximately 65 per cent for the NHS and 57 per cent for LA-delivered treatment . More than 90 per cent of the alcohol and drug workers staff group were on band 5 or lower . Forty per cent of voluntary sector staff had been in post for less than a year , compared to 37 per cent of staff overall and just 17 per cent of LAdelivered treatment staff .
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6 • DRINK AND DRUGS NEWS • APRIL 2023 |
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