HEART
‘When addiction
psychiatrists retire,
there will be no
more in training.
There are almost
no psychologists in
addiction anymore.’
‘There are
significant
deficiencies
in action with
essential early
diagnosis not
happening.’
Peer-led initiatives
could help to tackle
stigma head-on: ‘The
real key is meeting
someone who’s had
the problem and
recovered,’ he said.
‘It’s about giving
people the key to
change the situation
themselves.’
HUGE AMOUNT
OF INSTABILITY
there will be no more in training,’ she said.
Constant retendering had contributed to their
reluctance to enter the workforce, and there
were ‘almost no psychologists in addiction
anymore’.
SURVIVAL FUNCTIONS
Dr Stephen Ryder, who gave a talk on liver
disease, said that there was ‘a mismatch
between what industry wants and what health
and social care wants’. The fact that England
was ‘still waiting for an alcohol strategy’
demonstrated this, and he encouraged GPs to
keep working on survival functions.
‘The government won’t do anything, so
we have to do something,’ he said. Despite
high hospital admissions for alcohol-related
diagnosis of liver disease, there were ‘significant
deficiencies in action’ with essential early
diagnosis not happening and more than half of
people dying within two years of a late diagnosis.
In a conference called ‘Navigating the
storm’ there was an atmosphere of battling
through and looking for the patches of blue
sky. But as seen in the conference message,
the overwhelming response from GPs was –
enough’s enough. Health and sensible policy
must be first priority in this cash-starved sector
to stop the scandal of drug and alcohol related
deaths. DDN
Speaking in the
final session of the
conference about the
future of addictions
treatment, Dr Emily
Finch referred to
the ‘huge amount
of instability’. ‘All
addictions treatment
Dr Stephen Ryder
Dr Emily Finch
tends to be in a silo in
local authorities,’ she
said. ‘People don’t
believe it when you say “we’re not running that
by the sweeping movement of recovery. ‘The
service anymore”.’
positives that came out of that included peer
There was also ‘a real loss of skills in the
support – but somehow it was couched as
against what we did before,’ he said. ‘We need
sector’. ‘When addiction psychiatrists retire,
to combine harm reduction and recovery.’
‘We also need to try to change the system to
a chronic care model,’ he said, citing Maslow –
‘you don’t reach actualisation unless you have
something stable underneath’ – which could
begin with needing methadone, for example.
We deplore that in 2020 drug-
We call on the council to:
The current threats loomed large – the
related deaths are the highest on
reduction in budgets and turbulence in the
record and now a public health crisis.
Recognise the devastating impact of lack of
commissioning system, combined with
funding to drug and alcohol services since
workforce issues that saw an exodus of skills
We call on the College to work
the 2012 Health and Social Care Act, with
and opportunities.
with policy makers to not
consequent destruction of shared care services
But ‘in the rush to manage risk and KPIs we
criminalise people who use drugs
and lack of workforce of those able to work
forget how to relate to people,’ he said, with
and implement all evidence-
effectively with people who use drugs.
harm reduction and recovery both vital parts of
based harm reduction measures
the equation.
to reduce drug deaths including
Support minimum unit price for alcohol as
‘The development of peer-led recovery
consumption rooms and heroin
the single most important harm reduction
communities has stalled,’ he said, neglecting an
assisted treatment for those
measure to reduce health inequalities and save
opportunity for engagement and strategy. ‘We need
who need it.
lives for people who have alcohol problems.
to find a way to kickstart self-sustaining systems.’
CONFERENCE STATEMENT
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MARCH 2020 • DRINK AND DRUGS NEWS • 13