MP welcomes new powers for drug inspection body
13 July 2009
Weston-super-Mare MP John Penrose has welcomed the introduction of new powers for the Care Quality Commission, the recently created body responsible for inspecting and regulating drug rehabs, which he believes could provide "some of the major answers to Weston's drug problems".
Under the new Department of Health regulations, the Care Quality Commission will be given the authority to regulate residential rehabs as well as to regulate and inspect non-residential or community-based programmes. They will also be given the power to make sure that treatment and rehab centres keep proper records and co-operate with each other as recovering addicts move through the different steps and phases of their programme of care.
Since setting up his Cleaner Weston Campaign in 2004, John Penrose has been calling for such measures to solve some of the drug problems in the sea-side town. But while he has welcomed the measures he has written to the Department of Health urging them to go one step further and introduce a "watertight system". This would include the appointment of an official with overall responsibility for someone's recovery programme to ensure that they don't fall through any gaps left in the new system and aren't abandoned in towns like Weston-super-Mare.
John Penrose said: "I'm delighted that the Department of Health have accepted many of the lessons learnt from the Cleaner Weston Campaign and will be applying them across the rest of the country too.
"The new regulations will mean that all drug rehabs will be inspected and will have to provide a high quality service. At the moment too many places aren't inspected at all, which inevitably means a percentage of them are dodgy. If addicts are sent somewhere that isn't offering high quality care, they've got much less chance of beating their addiction and rejoining society. And if they relapse back onto drugs there's a high chance they'll turn to crime to finance their habit, which isn't fair on local communities either.
"The new regulations will also mean that there will be much more joined up thinking when it comes to addict's recovery plans too. At the moment too many addicts don't move on to the next stages in their rehabilitation when they finish their treatment, which means they're effectively dumped and abandoned in Weston without enough support to stop them from relapsing back onto drugs.
"But while these are big steps in the right direction, the Government needs to ensure that there aren't any gaps left in the system. That's why I've written to the Department of Health and urged them to go one step further and make it a requirement to appoint an official with overall responsibility for someone's recovery programme. This should ensure that addicts will no longer be abandoned in towns like Weston-super-Mare, which is much fairer on them and fairer on local communities too."
Text of letter written to Giles Wilmore, Director of System Regulation, Department of Health, 7th July 2009:
Thank you for your letter of 5th June and for forwarding me a copy of Response to consultation on the framework for the registration of health and adult social care providers and consultation on draft Regulations. I've carefully considered the points laid out in the report and I am delighted to see that you've agreed that residential accommodation which is provided as part of someone's treatment will be regulated. That's essential to make sure treatment and rehab centres which provide accommodation and group sessions in different buildings aren't able to slip through loopholes and avoid inspection which, I'm afraid, happens too often under the current rules.
Equally, I'm pleased to see you're also working on how to regulate and inspect non-residential or community-based programmes too. It's vital these have the same expectations of quality care as residential programmes. And I'm delighted you're planning to impose a duty on treatment and rehab centres to keep proper records and to co-operate with other providers as recovering addicts move through the different steps and phases of their programme of care. As I've mentioned in the past, it's essential to prevent addicts from being dumped and forgotten in places like Weston because no-one is responsible for ensuring they move from one provider to the next after they've completed each stage of their recovery.
In your letter you asked if I had any additional comments as part of the consultation process. Other than to reiterate the points I laid out in my previous letter, I remain concerned that the proposed obligation on service providers to plan care programmes properly, and to co-operate with other providers when addicts move on to the next steps in their recovery, may need more work. The risk that an addict will leave the care of their treatment centre and simply never arrive in the next one, or that they will relapse and be expelled from their treatment centre and vanish, is extremely high, particularly in the early stages of recovery. If you also consider the likelihood that original programmes of care frequently need to be revised as each addict's needs and goals change as they get further away from drugs, I would urge that overall responsibility for ensuring that each addict progresses safely between each stage of their recovery programme, and that the programme is updated properly, should remain with a single individual throughout the process. Ideally this person should be the original local authority (usually a Drug Action Team or similar) who developed the original care programme and commissioned the first treatment steps. They will have access to the entire case history, whereas providers further down an addict's care path may only have partial or incomplete records. Equally, retaining responsibility ensures there's no unwanted and unintentional financial pressure to ‘refer and forget' by sending addicts for treatment in an out-of-area centre (whether it's the right thing for the addicts or not) with a high likelihood that a significant proportion of them will then drop off the referring authority's budget once they progress onto further stages of their recovery in other out-of-area centres, or if they relapse and stay near their out-of-area treatment centre in a town like Weston. Both these problems affect Weston severely, so the referral process needs to be watertight.
Yours sincerely,
John Penrose
MP for Weston-super-Mare
