KEEP ON MOVING: ThE 12Th DDN cONfErENcE
Session 1
‘I try so hard to get
service users involved,
but no one ever wants
to know. So how do I get
them involved?’
PHE was also providing guidance on the
wider provision of naloxone, including mapping
Gary, delegate
the adequate provision of nasal naloxone. Her
organisation had issued guidance outlining four different
levels of service user involvement for commissioners and providers,
she said – involvement in people’s own care and treatment plans, involvement in
strategic development and commissioning, developing peer mentoring and support,
and delivering user-led, recovery-focused services. Injecting drug use continued to
be the highest risk factor for hepatitis C, she stated, and to meet the NHS’ 2025
eradication target would need local authorities, drug services and the NHS to all
work together. ‘Treatment needs to be available where people who use drugs are,’
she said, and drug services should be using peer support to encourage and promote
testing and treatment.
PHE would be pressing the government’s recently launched Carol Black review
into drugs and violence (see news, page 5 ) to look at how the drug treatment
sector is able to meet this range of challenges, she said, while the sector also
needed to make the most of the opportunities presented by the increasing focus
on mental health in the NHS.
‘Your voice is really important,’ she told delegates, ‘and it’s important that your
voice is heard and helps to shape policy and practice in the future. It’s important at
a local level and it’s important at a national level that we have opportunities to
listen to you and learn from you. I can only half do my job if I’m not being
influenced by what are your real experiences.’
T
he role of people who use drugs was back at the heart of harm
reduction, drug user advocate and activist Mat Southwell told the
conference. ‘I don’t think there’s been a space to discuss harm
reduction in the UK, and I’m disgusted that it’s taken an HIV outbreak
in Glasgow to bring the focus back.’ Post-Brexit, drug-related deaths in
Europe were predicted to fall by 25 per cent ‘simply because we’re leaving’, he said.
‘There are older drug users in the UK, yes, but that’s also the case across Europe.
We’ve got back to where we used to be, with people going to treatment as a last
resort because of the pressure to come off drugs. Methadone is not something
people should be pushed off, unless they’re ready to change.’
The government was putting ideology and scapegoating above science and
human rights, he said. ‘This ridiculous review looking at violence and drugs will not
be looking at prohibition – it’s like having a review of obesity and not looking at
sugar. When you start undermining people’s rights the logical end point is drug
users being murdered, as they are in places like the Philippines.’
Service user activism could have huge impact, he said, with the ‘White Noise’
movement in Georgia seeing 10,000 people marching against the country’s harsh
police crackdown on drug users. INPUD was engaging the UN, EuroNPUD was
8 | drinkanddrugsnews | March 2019
engaging the EU and country drug
user groups were engaging national
governments, he said, with examples
of peer-led harm reduction worldwide
including needle patrols, secondary
NSP programmes, peer education and
peer-led distribution of naloxone.
‘When you bias everything around
service user involvement towards
recovery then you lose all of this. We
need to get angry, and I’m
unapologetic about standing up here
being pissed off.’ The disproportionate
costs of prohibition ‘far outweigh any
benefits that people claim’, he said.
‘You have a responsibility when you
work with a drug user network that, as
well as power, we have vulnerabilities,’
he said. ‘When you engage us we can
interact with all those people who
don’t use treatment. Treatment is part
of the care pathway, but it’s not the
whole care pathway.
‘It’s time to reorganise,’ he told the
conference. ‘ We want to help our
peers. Stop framing us as a problem.
Let’s be part of the solution.’
‘Treatment is part of
the care pathway,
but it’s not the
whole care
pathway... it’s time
to reorganise. we
want to help our
peers. stop framing
us as a problem.
Let’s be part of the
solution.’
MAT souThweLL
www.drinkanddrugsnews.com