Reviewing England's Drug Misuse Treatment System
Public Health England’s recently published review reveals that the country’s drug misuse treatment system is performing well. However, there are still several areas that call for improvements.
Amongst the report’s findings, notable are:
- 60% of all opioid users are in treatment. This is among the highest recorded internationally.
- 97% of users start treatment within three weeks.
- There is a very low rate of HIV infection (1%) among intravenous drug users in England.
A couple of areas in which the treatment system is not doing so well include the number of drug-related deaths. This, it is estimated, will continue to rise. Also providing cause for concern is the number of people continuing to use opiates/heroin after starting treatment.
Whereas fewer people are using drugs now then 10 to 15 years ago, more hospital admissions and reports of drug-related injuries suggest that drug-related harms are increasing. Evidence demonstrates that this increase involves a small but growing number of serious heroin users with poor physical and mental wellbeing.It also shows that, in this instance, treatment alone is insufficient. Social factors ought to be considered as particularly influential on the success of treatments.
