Scottish Drugs Forum
Skip to Content | Skip to Main Navigation
scroll down for more stories
15 December 2004
Alcohol Focus Scotland wishes to initiate an evaluation research programme on its training programme for volunteer counsellors. This relates specifically to the impact and efficiency of delivering the training since a review was carried out, which resulted in some remodelling of the management and delivery of training courses.
This evaluation will not cover the effectiveness of the actual training being delivered.
This evaluation should take place over three years, with 7,000 pounds being payable each year. As this training is Scotland wide, AFS would envisage research interviews being carried out throughout the country.
If you want to know more about this piece of work please visit the members news pages on the AFS website www.alcohol-focus-scotland.org.uk or contact John Marletta on 0141 572 6282.
15 December 2004
Scottish Drugs Forum and two other Scottish social welfare charities have had talks with the Scottish Executive over the future of employability services after the end of the New Futures Fund.
SDF, Apex Scotland and the Scottish Council for the Single Homeless met Deputy Enterprise Minister Allan Wilson on 8 December to discuss the way forward for “move-on” projects for offenders, the homeless and people with drug and alcohol problems after March 2005.
The three charities, along with Dumbarton MSP and former Communities Minister Jackie Baillie, and Keith Raffan, chair of the Scottish Parliamentary Cross Party Groups on Drugs and Alcohol, had a “very constructive” meeting with Mr Wilson and his officials.
David Liddell, Director of SDF, said: “Various issues were discussed including the short-term funding difficulties for New Futures Fund projects and the Scottish Executive's long term strategy with regard to those furthest from the labour market.”
Seventy-four MSPs have signed a Scottish Parliamentary motion tabled by Jackie Baillie in which she calls on the Executive to put in place a long-term strategy to provide the most vulnerable adults with effective routes out of the problems they face by providing easy access to employability programmes.
Ms Baillie tabled the motion after chairing a meeting in November of the 60 remaining NFF Initiative projects and heard first hand accounts of how the NFFI has made a huge and lasting difference to peoples’ lives.
In July, the three charities submitted a joint manifesto to the then Deputy Enterprise Minister Lewis Macdonald calling for the NFF to be replaced by a 200 million investment plan over 10 years which would move at least 30,000 of Scotland’s most vulnerable people into employment, training and jobs.
However, there has been no indication yet of how the Executive plan to take forward this vital area of rehabilitation investment once the NFF – which is managed by Scottish Enterprise – comes to a close.
In their letter, the charities say it is imperative that action is taken now to retain the expertise and skills which projects have developed so that lasting change can be delivered to the most marginalised.
“There are sound economic arguments for long term investment in this area which should not be ignored. The alternative will be to reinvent a similar initiative in the future, by which time impetus, expertise and the knowledge of how to deliver successful outcomes built up over the last five years will have been lost.”
Figures show that 21 percent of the NFF participants entered employment, 14 percent entered training programmes, 12 percent entered further education and 10 percent engaged in voluntary work.
15 December 2004
CALLS to the new national family support group telephone launched on 26 November have been slow but steady, according to Scottish Network for Families Affected by Drugs (SNFAD).
Lynn Clare, SNFAD’s Network Development Officer, says that the recent launch of the helpline – tel 08080 101011 - has attracted plenty of interest, with some new members joining and other people interested in becoming members.
SNFAD has sent out 5000 posters featuring the helpline number for police stations, prisoner visitors centres, Drug Action Teams, drug services, support groups, Sheriff Courts and hospital accident and emergency departments.
Letters of introduction have also been sent out to a variety of groups including MSPs.
SNFAD is planning a whistle stop tour of all Scottish regions next year to promote its work and visit interested parties, with support from local groups putting posters into libraries, post offices and GP surgeries.
The helpline is Scotland’s first 24-hour telephone support and information helpline solely dedicated for the families, friends and carers of problem drug users. It operates 24 hours a day 365 days per year and is staffed by volunteers from various family support organisations across Scotland.
15 December 2004
The Scottish Executive is to streamline funding for community-building projects to ensure resources are spent more effectively.
Scotland Against Drugs is also to be refocused so that it can engage Scottish businesses directly in supporting the delivery of the Executive’s drugs strategy.
The announcements are among raft of measures unveiled in the Executive’s Criminal Justice Action Plan and which includes proposals aimed at tackling the involvement of drugs on crime in Scotland.
Scotland’s latest annual homicide statistics show that at least 16 percent of people accused of killing someone in 2003 had taken drugs at the time. A further 10 percent of the accused whose substance consumption status was known had been on drugs and alcohol when they had killed, the 2003 figures also show.
Measures in the new Action Plan feature new proposals to tackle Scotland's high re-offending rates, reduce crime and the fear of crime and restore public confidence in the country's criminal justice services.
As well as addressing crime prevention, court reform, and the effectiveness of sentences, the main focus is on high levels of re-offending when currently six out of 10 prisoners are reconvicted within two years of their release from prison.
Among the key proposals are the establishment of a national advisory board for offender management to develop a national strategy to reduce re-offending and take on responsibility for monitoring Scottish Prison Service performance on offender management.
There will also be legislation to create a statutory requirement for SPS and local authorities to work together to reduce re-offending and ensure they form effective local area partnerships to deliver integrated services for offenders in prison and the community.
Local councils’ criminal justice services are to be brought together into new Community Justice Authorities to ensure these local areas partnerships are as joined-up as possible. These groupings will in future receive the community component of criminal justice funding and be responsible for ensuring these resources are used effectively across traditional council boundaries
The Executive also says it will continue to invest in community initiatives aimed at reducing substance misuse, tackling the causes and effects of drug related crime and offering alternative lifestyle choices to individuals in hardest-hit communities.
“At the same time, we will streamline the range of funding streams which currently support community projects to reduce the risk of directing the attention of voluntary groups away from making an impact where it matters most.”
The Executive also underlines its pledge to work through Scottish Drugs Forum to enhance the capacity of community groups to take action to tackle local drugs problems.
Examining the ways of improving the level of take up of drug treatment by sex workers is among the other pledges in the Action Plan, which also details the wide-ranging treatment, rehabilitation and alternatives to custody measures previously announced by the Executive.
Annual homicide figures in Scotland for 2003 showed that of the 140 people accused last year, 16 percent were on drugs and 10 percent were on drugs and alcohol at the time of the killing and 39 percent were drunk.
Only nine accused were reported not to have been under the influence of drink or drugs. The drink/drug status was not known for the remaining 40 (29 per cent) accused.
Twelve victims (11 per cent of all homicide victims) were reported to have been killed in a drug related homicide, i.e. a homicide motivated by the need to obtain drugs (or money for drugs), homicide of a supplier or consumer of drugs in order to steal proceeds of drug trade or homicide as a consequence of rivalry within the trade/between users or dealers.
15 December 2004
MORE substance misuse nurses should be appointed in Scotland and they should be given an opportunity to influence national and local policy in drugs treatment, according to a new Effective Interventions Unit publication on the role of substance misuse nurses in Scotland.
Consideration should be given to allowing senior substance misuse nurses to prescribe controlled drugs and nurses could also help to train GPs in managing polydrug using patients and widen the GPs’ perspective of the social benefits of drug misuse treatment, say the report authors, who are based at the University of Aberdeen and NHS Grampian.
The report says that the role of the substance misuse nurse has increased dramatically with the increase in problem drug use over the past 20 years. However, research on the role of nurses working in this field is minimal and there is little known about what they do, what they think about their clients and their role, and how they approach treatment.
The study identified 272 substance misuse nurses in Scotland, with 70 percent of those replying being Grade G or above, indicating a senior level workforce.
Most nurses were employed in substance misuse services (48 percent) or, similarly, drug and alcohol services (30percent). Formal training (university certificate/diploma) in substance misuse had been undertaken by 40 percent of nurses, induction training (i.e. at the start of employment) by 62 percent of nurses.
The median caseload was 38 clients and waiting times for assessment were generally an issue of concern to nurses, said the report.
Seventy-seven percent of nurses who responded considering working with drug misusers to be rewarding, although 79 percent also considered that this population were not easy to deal with.
The feeling was commonly expressed among interviewees that their work could be stressful, and this was seen as due to paperwork, excessive caseloads and working in isolation.
Nurses were less likely than GPs to favour detoxification as a treatment approach, although 83 percent of nurses agreed that a community based detoxification programme was an effective tool for the treatment of drug misuse. Nurses were also more confident than GPs about their ability to successfully manage poly-drug users.
The report recommended that staffing of substance misuse nurses should be expanded in order to reduce: excessive caseloads; lengthy waiting lists; insufficient cover for holidays, training and absences; and occupational stress
Nearly two-thirds - 64 percent - reported they had been physically or verbally abused by clients, and half of those who had been subject to abuse felt current safety provision in their service was insufficient. Greater use of personal alarms and alarms in consultation rooms, use of mobile phones, and specialised training were suggested as ways of improving safety.
Among the report’s other recommendations were that:
15 December 2004
THE deadline for submissions to a UK-wide consultation on allowing ambulance technicians to administer the life-saving opiate-reversal drug Naloxone in emergencies is 17 January.
The Medicine and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) wants to hear views on a proposal to add Naloxone to the range of prescription only medicines which can be administered parenterally by anyone in order to save life in an emergency.
Naloxone is an antidote to opiod overdose and is carried routinely on ambulances to treat patients suffering from severe respiratory depression as a result of overdosing.
However, under current regulations, even though many ambulance technicians are trained in applying Naxolone, they are unable to use it in practice because they are not included in the list of “registered paramedics” permitted by law to administer the drug on their own initiative.
The proposal is aimed specifically at allowing ambulance technicians to administer Naloxone in an emergency when a registered paramedic may not be available.
Making Naloxone available to ambulance technicians would represent a significant improvement in patient care, says MHRA. The proposal has been endorsed by the Department of Health and supported by the Joint Royal Colleges Liaison Committee, who act as a focal point for ambulance issues. The move was also recommended by the Advisory Council on Misuse of Drugs in their report, “Reducing Drugs Deaths.”
In its recent Review of Treatment and Rehabilitation Services, the Scottish Executive has said it will consider the potential case for widening the availability of Naloxone in order to counter the effects of heroin overdose.