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drinkanddrugsnews
| 1 March 2010
placed them firmly at the bottom of the hierarchy. This latter model meant people
only attended services when in crisis, and encouraged confrontation,
inappropriate services and poor community support and development, he said.
The personalisation agenda, however, was based on the premise ‘that there’s an
entitlement to funding, rather than you get it as a gift.’
‘The vision is a society where everyone is respected and included as equal
members,’ he said. The strengths of the personalisation agenda were that it
improved choice and increased ‘self-directed’ and ‘self-informed’ support. Its
monitoring and outcomes were around citizenship – for example, income levels,
quality of relationships and contribution to society – with the idea that
independent brokerage services would help to direct budgets.
‘It’s extremely early days,’ he said. ‘Nobody has actually got a personalised
budget yet,’ although the Department of Health was running a pilot programme
that included two substance misuse services. The personalisation agenda would not
dictate the range of treatment modalities available in any particular area, he
stressed, and it appeared better suited to things like aftercare support packages.
Based on what they now knew, 34 per cent of delegates thought it would
have a positive effect, 13 per cent negative and 53 per cent neither positive nor
negative. Among the negative views expressed by delegates were ‘if a service
starts to bail, you’ll lose that service completely – if you’ve got good marketing
you’ll get the money. How will it cover the areas where there are no services? How
will people get the information to make an informed decision?’
There was also the fear that it could potentially mean simply adding an extra
tier, or bombarding service users with too much information. ‘I had enough
trouble remembering my address,’ commented one delegate. ‘How are people
supposed to remember all this?
On the question of which personalised approach was the most important, 24
per cent thought access to treatment of choice, 3 per cent access to psychosocial
support of choice, 67 per cent both and 4 per cent neither.
Meanwhile, on the issue of how the approach might have an impact on the
wider recovery and reintegration agenda and the rights of the individual service
user, there were fears from the floor that it might mean people ‘talking to each
other but not getting their medication’.
‘It’s not just about abstinence,’ Peter McDermott told the session. ‘What’s
important is that we drive this locally.’
‘The vision is a society where everyone is
respected and included as equal members.’
Peter McDermott, press and policy officer, The Alliance
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THE
PERSONAL
TOUCH
Getting to grips with the
government’s proposed
personalisation agenda
could give service users
essential control over
their treatment plan,
the Alliance told an
interactive final
session
‘DRUG AND ALCOHOL USE IS A HUMAN ISSUE,’
Alliance executive director Daren
Garratt told the conference’s closing session on the personalisation agenda, which
he dedicated to the victims of the anthrax outbreak and recently deceased
ibogaine pioneer Howard Lotsoff (
DDN
, 2 June 2008, page 18). ‘We need a strong
voice to challenge stigma – strength in numbers and a strong national voice.’
The session focused on a consultation with delegates around personalisation,
part of a three-year project funded by the Department of Health. Using the
interactive voting system it was established that delegates were split fairly evenly
along gender lines and most fell into the 26-55 age range, with most areas of the
country well-represented. Forty-two per cent were service users, 33 per cent
former service users and 25 per cent had never used services. A quarter said they
were aware of the personalisation agenda, while 39 per cent were unaware. Thirty
five per cent were aware but didn’t understand how it related to drug treatment.
The agenda came from other areas of social care such as adult social care and
learning disabilities, The Alliance’s press and policy officer, Peter McDermott, told
delegates. It was based on the premise that service users were citizens and
therefore entitled to treatment, rather than the ‘professional gift’ model that