NHS 2 Billion

The Channel 4 Programme on Monday night continues to fuel polarised debate with the show. As a country, we feel passionately about the NHS, and the discussion on Social Media over the last 24 hours demonstrates this. Last night’s show, which included a heroin addict, highlighted several issues around drug treatment and its perception. I think it is fair to say that the majority of the British Public when told about drug addiction treatment, either has a negative view or does not understand what it means. In 2014, less than 2% of the budget for addiction treatment was spent on ‘real rehab’ whilst the rest of the money was invested into drop-ins, local day programmes and prescribing programmes.

Methadone prescribing, which has unfortunately been the primary treatment method for many years and championed as ‘cost effective’, is now proving to be anything other than a cheap solution. The consequence of mass prescribing is that we have paid little attention to other drug problems, concentrating purely on heroin misuse, whilst other drugs like cocaine, cannabis and ketamine have been wholly overlooked. People who have developed an addiction to these drugs often report feeling misunderstood when turning up at their local drug agency due to the heroin focus. Another consequence of this approach has been an increase in heavy drinking. Most statistics now clearly show that the alcohol intake of someone on methadone regularly increases, resulting in other problems, including health-related and crime-related issues.

Of course, not everyone who goes to rehab gets clean and stays clean, but this is undoubtedly their best chance. So often, I am told by people who desperately want to get into recovery that they are told by their drug workers that they are not ready and that they should not reduce their methadone. Herein lies the problem. Teams of people who do not understand addiction underestimate what their clients are capable of and have been brainwashed by big drug companies.

At The Providence Projects, we do not believe that more money needs to be spent on addiction treatment, but the money needs to be paid more wisely. Let’s stop tricking the public into thinking all these people who are currently struggling with addiction get rehab, as so few do. So many agencies cost millions of pounds, with very few people getting natural healing and very few getting clean. In our opinion, the expertise in this field is amongst the residential rehabs who have worked there for 40 years in the UK and have had the best successes.