NHS Southwark consultation on drug and alcohol services

NHS Southwark is carrying out a consultation on proposed changes to the delivery of drug and alcohol services in the borough.

"As issues arise such as new treatment options, new funding arrangements and changing patterns of drug use, we need to ensure, as commissioners, that we are responding in the right way," says Dame Donna Kinnair, Director of Commissioning at NHS Southwark.

"Sometimes these issues can be addressed with little or no reorganisation of services but on other occasions more significant changes are required. Such is the case with the current proposal."

Central to this consultation is the proposed reorganisation of South London and Maudsley (SLaM) NHS Foundation Trust's specialist drug and alcohol treatment services and the establishment of an Integrated Offender Management Service.

This is a single-site service that would house not only substance misuse services but also partner agencies such as the police, probation, the Prolific and Other Priority Offenders (PPO) Team, and the Diamond Initiative Team – a multi-agency initiative that seeks to break the cycle of re-offending by co-ordinated interventions with repeat offenders.

NHS Southwark is proposing a service re-organisation based on:

• Basing SLaM's clinical staff from both Community Drug and Alcohol Teams (CDAT) in one site rather than the current two (the preferred site option being CDAT at Blackfriars Road with the remainder of the SLaM Specialist Teams being based at Marina House)
• Increased use of satellite clinics (that is, SLaM CDAT staff seeing clients in other locations such as hostels, general practices and third sector drug agencies).
• Increased use of community pharmacists for the provision of supervised dispensing services.
• The continuing referral of non-complex clients into primary care services as appropriate.
• Creating a new Integrated Offender Management service (the preferred site for this is Marina House in Camberwell)