Improving services for substance misuse: joint review 2006/2007
In 2005, the National Treatment Agency for Substance Misuse (NTA), in partnership with the Healthcare Commission, embarked on a joint three-year programme of annual independent assessments as part of an initiative to enhance the quality, consistency and effectiveness of drug treatment services.
The two organisations worked jointly to set up the process for the reviews and the work is governed by a memorandum of understanding. The NTA is a specialist sponsor and the Healthcare Commission is the inspector and regulator.
National Treatment Agency for Substance Misuse (NTA) website (opens new window)
Drug treatment is provided by a network of services, commissioned by local partnerships of statutory agencies within a particular area, rather than being provided by individual organisations. These networks or ‘local drug partnerships’ are aligned to local authority boundaries. There are 149 partnerships in England that bring together representatives of local organisations involved in the delivery of the drug strategy, including primary care trusts, local authorities, the police and the probation service. The reviews assess the performance of each local drug partnership, which is awarded an overall score.
The topics for the three annual reviews are:
• Community prescribing services and care planning and coordination (conducted in 2005/2006)
• Commissioning drug treatment systems and harm reduction services (this review)
• Diversity and residential services (inpatient and rehabilitation services). This is being carried out in 2007/2008 and is ‘supported and fully endorsed’ by the Commission for Social Care Improvement (CSCI).
The service reviews are designed to assess the provision and commissioning of drug treatment against key indicators. They provide a benchmark of the quality of drug treatment and information on areas of weakness, against which improvement can be planned.
The review of substance misuse services carried out in 2006/2007 is the second in the series and covered two themes:
- Commissioning and systems management of drug treatment - to ensure that services meet the needs of local populations and are managed to deliver the best possible treatment to people who use substance misuse services.
- Harm reduction services - to reduce the transmission of blood-borne viruses and drug-related deaths.
The assessments are focused on a small number of key outcomes and measures of quality, which matter most to patients and the public. They are also focused on the key features of services which are necessary to achieve good outcomes and quality for patients and the public.
Final results and national report for the 2006/2007 review
The Healthcare Commission and NTA have now published the national report and the final results of the 2006/2007 joint service review of commissioning and harm reduction. The report summarises the review findings at a national level, draws conclusions and makes recommendations for improving services.
Improving services for substance misuse - Commissioning drug treatment and harm reduction services (pdf 2871kb) (opens new window)
All local drug partnerships and PCTs in the review received their individual results in November 2007. Links to results for the partnerships are given below. The scores for partnerships have also been allocated to PCTs within the partnership.
Individual local drug partnership scores (xls 263kb) (opens new window)
Partnership scores ranked by overall score (xls 62kb) (opens new window)
Primary Care Trust Scores (pdf 208kb) (opens new window)
Further information is also available on the NTA website
Supporting documents
Below are the key documents relating to the delivery of the 2006/2007 service review.
- Assessment framework (pdf 354kb) (opens new window) - This document states the themes of the review and the rationale for their selection, the standards that underpin the review, the criteria, questions and data sources used in the assessment.
- Scoring construction guide (pdf 1377kb) (opens new window) - This document outlines the scoring construction for each individual data item, question and criteria. The scoring construction enables you to identify which spreadsheet contains the partnership response to an individual data item. To do this, go to the index on page 3, locate the criteria question e.g. criteria 1 question 1 – page 3-4. The first item under the criteria question, ‘Data source’, informs you which questionnaire or national data source was used e.g. Bespoke question for the Joint Commissioning Manager. To view the data submitted for the item go to ‘Underlying data’ (located below on this web page) and select the relevant spreadsheet e.g. Joint Commissioning Managers Questionnaire.
- What is an Improvement Review? (pdf 40kb) (opens new window)
- Request a review of the score for an indvidual trust (by Tuesday 3 June 2008)
Underlying data
Each spreadsheet contains the data either submitted by the partnership, the services commissioned by the partnership or national data used as part of the overall assessment.
- Overall results (xls 97kb) (opens new window) – This excel spreadsheet contains the total scores, overall scores, criteria level scores and question level scores for all partnerships.
- National data (Service users satisfaction survey, NTA regional managers questionnaire, NDTMS) (xls 315kb) (opens new window)
- Joint Commissioning Managers questionnaire (xls 530kb) (opens new window)
- Specialist Community Prescribing Services questionnaire (xls 128kb) (opens new window)
- Non pharmacy-based fixed needle and syringe providers questionnaire (xls 204kb) (opens new window)
- Pharmacy exchange scheme coordinators questionnaire (xls 177kb) (opens new window)
Helpline and feedback
You can telephone the Healthcare Commission’s Helpline to ask questions or give feedback on: 0845 601 3012 (access to language and Typetalk services).
Most reports on this site are PDF files, to view any PDF file you will need Adobe Acrobat Reader.