Committee
Health Committee, 23 Jan 2007
23 Jan 2007 · S2 · Health Committee
Item of business
Treatment of Drug Users
Catriona Renfrew:
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We could have a pretty strong consensus that drug treatment services are not as effective as they should be. The health board in my area spends about £37 million on such services. It is quite easy to find out how much each health board and each local authority spends on drug services. I am surprised that it has been suggested that that is a challenge. NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde certainly accounts for the money that it spends. Although we spend £37 million—which is probably a higher amount, proportionately, than any other health board spends in Scotland—we treat only half the people in our area who have serious drug problems. Even in an area in which a great deal of energy has been focused on providing drug services, we are still not meeting the need. It would be useful to have a discussion about why that is.Two or three elements of the problem have emerged from the opening remarks. The drug problem is enormously complex and the conflation of it into a few soundbites does not help us to solve it. It is entirely appropriate that some of the drug issues fall within the remit of criminal justice. The point is that treatment and rehabilitation—not the whole of drugs policy in Scotland—should be a health responsibility. We must unpick the different strands of the drug problem if we are to address them properly.The second issue that has come out is the politicisation of the debate about treatment. That would not happen with other forms of treatment that are offered by the national health service in Scotland. A debate about methadone versus residential rehab takes us nowhere. If we could all agree that a decent set of drug services should provide an enormous range of treatment options, which are delivered to clients or patients on the basis of their assessed needs, instead of having endless debates in which different treatment options are played off against each other in an abstract way, we might be able to make progress.
In the same item of business
The Convener:
SNP
Agenda item 2 is a one-off round-table evidence-gathering session on the treatment of drug users in Scotland. We have been joined by senior representatives o...
Janis Hughes (Glasgow Rutherglen) (Lab):
Lab
I am the deputy convener of the committee.
Kate Maclean (Dundee West) (Lab):
Lab
I am a member of the committee.
Mark Frankland (First Base Agency):
I am the education manager at First Base Agency.
Mr Duncan McNeil (Greenock and Inverclyde) (Lab):
Lab
I am a member of the Health Committee.
Euan Robson (Roxburgh and Berwickshire) (LD):
LD
I am a member of the Health Committee.
Ms Rosemary Byrne (South of Scotland) (Sol):
Sol
I am a member of the Scottish Parliament.
Dr Richard Watson (Royal College of General Practitioners Scotland):
I am clinical lead for drug misuse at the Royal College of General Practitioners Scotland. I am a full-time general practitioner in Glasgow and deal with dru...
Professor Neil McKeganey (University of Glasgow):
I am director of the centre for drug misuse research at the University of Glasgow.
Alex MacKinnon (Scottish Pharmaceutical General Council):
I represent the Scottish Pharmaceutical General Council.
Tom Wood (Scottish Association of Alcohol and Drug Action Teams):
I chair the Scottish Association of Alcohol and Drug Action Teams and represent the 22 alcohol and drug action teams throughout Scotland.
Helen Eadie (Dunfermline East) (Lab):
Lab
I am an MSP.
Dave Liddell (Scottish Drugs Forum):
I represent the Scottish Drugs Forum.
Dr Jean Turner (Strathkelvin and Bearsden) (Ind):
Ind
I am an MSP.
Stephen Moore (Association of Directors of Social Work):
I represent the Association of Directors of Social Work.
Mrs Nanette Milne (North East Scotland) (Con):
Con
I am an MSP.
Catriona Renfrew (NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde):
I am the director of corporate planning policy with NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde. We are responsible for providing drug and alcohol services for about a thi...
Shona Robison (Dundee East) (SNP):
SNP
I am a member of the committee.
The Convener:
SNP
We are expecting Lesley Finch from SCOT-PEP, the Scottish Prostitutes Education Project, and she may yet turn up. We have had no indication of whether she wi...
Professor McKeganey:
I will begin with a brief comment on funding. It is not easy to get information on funding for drug treatment services in Scotland, but the indications are t...
Tom Wood:
I thank the committee for inviting us. I am sure that all the guests who are round the table will agree that one deficit on the matter in Scotland has been t...
Ms Byrne:
Sol
How effective is the current approach? Drug treatment and rehabilitation in Scotland is patchy and unequal, and for those attempting to access services it is...
The Convener:
SNP
A round-table discussion is meant to flow more easily than a question-and-answer session. Witnesses will be entitled to put questions to other witnesses; it ...
Catriona Renfrew:
We could have a pretty strong consensus that drug treatment services are not as effective as they should be. The health board in my area spends about £37 mil...
Mark Frankland:
It is worth considering two factors that are particular to heroin addiction, which I think will dominate today's discussion. First, everyone will agree that ...
The Convener:
SNP
If an addict phones up to seek help, would you like contact to be made almost immediately? Should someone come round to see them straight away?
Mark Frankland:
Even more simply, I would like to see a system that used to obtain in general practitioners' surgeries when I was a boy. It was possible to ring, get an appo...
Catriona Renfrew:
Almost every part of the national health service now has an access standard. However, there are no access standards for drugs services, so we can keep people...
Alex MacKinnon:
I come at the issue from the perspective of the body that represents all community pharmacists, who are at the sharp edge of delivering services to drug misu...
The Convener:
SNP
I ask everybody, when a subject begins to emerge as a discussion issue, not to come in and immediately scatter-gun around with another set of issues as well....