KEEP ON MOVING: ThE 12Th DDN cONfErENcE
Session 1
MOVING FORWARD
The day’s first session focused
the current state of play in the
treatment sector, the vital role
of user involvement, and where
things needed to go from here.
Photography by Nigel Brunsdon
‘I
feel as though I’m among friends,’ Turning Point chief executive Lord
Victor Adebowale told delegates at Keep on Moving’s opening session,
‘Food for thought’.
‘The theme of this conference is Keep on Moving, but before we talk
about the future I think it’s worth reflecting on the past – where we’ve
come from.’ When he’d become chief executive in 2001 Tony Blair was still prime
minister and drug and alcohol treatment were ‘quite separate’, he told delegates,
with ‘huge debates’ about what service structures should look like.
The New Labour government had a focus on evidence-based research, he said,
with 200 targets for every government department. Although the first ten-year
drug strategy talked about diversion into treatment from criminal justice, the focus
was still on ‘crime reduction rather than harm reduction’, he stressed. ‘The emphasis
was on getting problem drug users into treatment, and enhancing the quality of
that treatment by setting targets.’
The numbers in treatment – and spending on treatment – increased
dramatically. Since then, however, public health had moved to local government
from the NHS, with seven out of ten councils cutting their spending on drug and
alcohol treatment. Among the councils that had reduced their spending, 83 per cent
had seen an increase in drug-related deaths, he pointed out.
Today around 58 per cent of treatment was provided by third sector
6 | drinkanddrugsnews | March 2019
‘The conditions and
challenges that push
people to the edge,
such as money
worries, lack of job
security, stress, poor
housing and family
breakdown, are
getting worse, and
tackling those issues
needs professionals
with experience.’
organisations compared to just 42 per
cent by the NHS, and Turning Point had
grown by adapting and working with
communities, he said. ‘The majority of
services are now provided by the not-
for-profit sector, which brings me to
service user involvement. As far as I’m
concerned, I’m talking to fellow
professionals. The people that you
work with trust you – as you have
trusted people – with their lives. It’s
not just about being an ex-user or
someone in recovery.’
Austerity had not gone away and
Brexit was ‘not going to help’, he said.
The conditions and challenges that
pushed people ‘to the edge’, such as
money worries, lack of job security,
stress, poor housing and family
breakdown, were getting worse, and
tackling those issues needed
professionals with experience. ‘We
can’t cut our way into the future,’ he
stated. ‘We have to work with others.
To tackle these issues in the context of
reducing resources we need
professionalism and partnerships with
our communities.
Lord VicTor AdebowALe
‘I want to thank you because,
fundamentally, every single person
sitting in this room makes people like me look good,’ he continued. ‘You’re the
people with frontline understanding. In the next five years the challenges we face
now are going to become more acute, and we’re going to have to work differently,
not just harder, in a way that’s “and/and” rather than “either/or”.’
As drug and alcohol treatment had been separate in 2001, now substance
misuse was separate from the rest of the NHS, he said. ‘I see people who have
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