DDN 0717 DDN 18July2017 | Page 19

Letters and Comment DDN welcomes your letters Please email the editor, [email protected], or post them to DDN, romney House, school road, Ashford, Kent tN27 0lt. letters may be edited for space or clarity. Let's connect! HAVE YOUR SAY BY COMMENTING ON OUR WEBSITE, FACEBOOK PAGE AND TWEETING US IN RESPONSE TO ‘MARKET FORCES’ (DDN, JUNE, PAGE 14) Bravo @KarenLTyrell in @DDNMagazine this month. ‘...keep people alive. Be as aspiration al as you want, but keep people alive.’ Also @Shapiroharry spot on in same @DDNMagazinearticle when he says we need to bring #harmreductionback into the heart of the mainstream. George Burton,@DoctorDimmage, by Twitter ‘By engaging with clients over a long period and putting a support package together that includes OST at the right levels, clients are given the best possible chance of success’ Dynamic outreach Thank you for the article looking at outreach services in Brighton (Vital Connections, DDN, June, page 6). I would like to congratulate the team at Equinox for encouraging the ‘entrepreneurial element to being a frontline worker’. As services increasingly implement more rigid working practices and set protocols for their staff, it was great to hear that their team were given the autonomy to deal with clients as individuals and take time to build their trust. By engaging with clients over a long period and putting a support package together that includes OST at the right levels, clients are given the best possible chance of success when the time is right for them to enter rehab. The ‘whole person’ vision with harm reduction working alongside recovery sounded refreshingly old fashioned in these days of targets and outcome data. Well done DDN for sharing this and many other examples of good practice from around the country. Keep up the good work! Jack Bounds, by email www.drinkanddrugsnews.com to gauge. A single report on 3MF stated that 0.016mg was active BUT the response to these super-potent analogues is variable between people. Just because someone else shoots a bag and is OK doesn’t mean it can be presumed safe for others... even if someone DID cut it properly. S W Dunlevy, by Facebook IN RESPONSE TO ‘ON BORROWED TIME’ (DDN, MAY, PAGE 6) It's no surprise with the funding cuts. Too many services have closed or had to reduce what they can offer. Helen Morris Jenkins, by Facebook Must read: @DDNMagazine May edition pages 6&7 about the crisis in the drug and alcohol sector. Deeply worrying. SMMGP, @SMMGP, by Twitter Look to the Portugal model, radical and yet effective! Amanda Thomas, by Facebook IN RESPONSE TO ‘ALCOHOL-RELATED DEATHS MORE THAN 50 PER CENT HIGH ER IN SCOTLAND’ (ONLINE NEWS STORY) With alcohol and drug contracts being awarded to the lowest bidders in austerity Britain, it’s the commissioners who need to be challenged. It’s they who have blood on their hands thinking that alcohol and drug work can be done on the cheap. Deaths in service, especially in our larger cities... are truly staggering and alarming. I hope deaths in service are truly transparent... Hopefully the CQC will leave no stone unturned in their visits... in examination and cross-checking of GP records of the deceased. John Rogers, by Facebook I fear that increasing the price will yield the same results as tobacco – smuggling be comes widespread. What is even worse is that smug - g led alcohol with