Medical assisted treatment for people with problematic drug use will be rolled out across South Lanarkshire but funding arrangements for it have been criticised.
At the South Lanarkshire Integration Joint Board meeting this week, which was attended by representatives from the council and NHS Lanarkshire, information on the local approach to introduce Medical Assisted Treatment Standards (MATS) was presented to members.
It was confirmed the treatment will be funded by the Scottish Government for one year and delivered through an extension of urgent response, which has been used in a successful test project carried out in the Clydesdale area.
The responsibility, which has been transferred to local authorities and health boards, was criticised by South Lanarkshire council’s chief executive Cleland Sneddon.
He said: “Notwithstanding the very significant need for us to act on this particular agenda, we have received a letter from the Scottish Government ministers.
“It proposed that effectively there’s a transfer of accountability from ministers and it seeks to make a direction. There is no right for the government to make that direction, we believe, to local authorities, that’s being checked at the moment at a national level.
“If you were being cynical, it’s a transfer of accountability for something that ministers have received quite a bit of criticism over for a period of time.
“We will take this up with the Scottish Government via COSLA and an issue about whether there’s rights. There is a transfer of accountability and yet they’ve given one year funding confirmation. We need a policy like this to be baselined, we need confirmation of longer term funding and then we’ll consider the kind of implementation."
He added: “We’re solidly behind our colleagues in terms of taking forward these improvement actions but actually the governance around this is clumsy and there’s a bit of national work that needs to take place to iron this issue out so it’s just to make the board aware.”
Director of health and social care for South Lanarkshire Council, Soumen Sengupta, echoed Mr Sneddon’s concerns and raised the issue of staffing. He said: “We’ve only got one year funding confirmed at this point and as I’ve intimated already at some points of the financial positions that we’re all going to have to contend with over the coming weeks and months.
“We’ll continue to highlight to the government the needs for this commitment to be appropriately funded and we need to secure the sums involved for years two three and four because we’ve not had quantification of that and indeed onward recurrent funding in order to fulfil the requirements.”
The aim of the treatment is to ensure everyone who needs help is offered it and is supported to access services that deliver care and treatment.
The local urgent response will allow urgent and timely help to people at an increased risk of drug-related death.
There will be an option for people to start MATS on the same day of presentation, and support will be given to help people make an informed choice on what medication to be prescribed and the appropriate doses.
All individuals at high risk of drug-related harm will be proactively identified and offered support to begin MATS with support in treatment lasting as long as requested.
The time-limited funding is to be used to provide increased capacity to support people urgently in need of help, these include individuals transitioning from prison to the community, or those in crisis.
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