Nottinghamshire Healthcare, the county’s mental health and learning disability Trust, has received top ratings for its substance misuse harm reduction services in a review undertaken by the Healthcare Commission and National Treatment Agency for Substance Misuse (NTA).
The recently published results follow a review in 2006/07 into the commissioning of drug treatment and harm reduction services, which are provided by ‘local drug partnerships’. Overall the Nottinghamshire drug partnership came third out of 149 local partnerships in England, with the Trust’s provision of harm reduction services two scores of ‘excellent’ and one ‘good’ playing a key part in achieving this excellent rating.
The harm reduction section of the review included the assessment of how services are embedded within the system; that service users have prompt and flexible access to needle exchange services, vaccination and treatment for blood-borne viruses; action taken to reduce drug-related deaths and that staff are competent to deliver effective harm reduction services.
The review is the second in a series of three reviews by the Healthcare Commission and NTA, which commenced in 2005 to enhance the quality, consistency and effectiveness of drug treatment.
Dave Manley, Dual Diagnosis Nurse Consultant for the Local Services Division of the Trust speaking on behalf of all the Trust’s substance misuse services, said: “We are pleased with these results and have worked hard to ensure that the services we provide are of the highest standard. We have excellent working relationships with our partner organisations and are committed to making further improvements to the benefit of people who use our services.”
