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Integrated Care for drug users: Principles and practice
FOREWORD
Across Scotland, there has been an increasing interest in recent years in the development of integrated care services for people with drug misuse problems. This has grown from a recognition that people with drug misuse problems will, in many cases, have a range of other difficulties in their lives. A range of treatment, care and support services, for example, housing, training and employment services, may be needed to help the individual to make progress towards recovery and to improve their relationships with their family, friends and community. In DAT areas, planning for integrated care is at various stages from early discussions to quite advanced planning while in a small number of areas a model of integrated care is in place.
The
Effective Interventions Unit (EIU) undertook to examine the principles and practice of integrated care in our first Work Programme. We have collaborated with a wide range of agencies and organisations including health, Joint Future, social work and the voluntary sector through a Reference Group, Working Groups and consultation workshops. We have also sought the views of service users through focus groups conducted on our behalf by Scottish Drugs Forum. The other major part of the work was to review the relevant research literature and policy documents from the drug field and other sectors.
In the last 18 months, we have examined a number of aspects of integrated care. However, the concept of integrated care for drug users is still relatively new and, consequently, knowledge and expertise is developing all the time. We found, for example, in examining the planning and delivery of care, that there is a need for more evidence about the most effective approach to care co-ordination. The Models of Care initiative in England is exploring this issue through the Enhanced Treatment Outcome pilots and there will be lessons to be learned from those in due course.
The design of the document as a loose leaf binder will enable EIU to update existing chapters and to add new material as it becomes available. We hope it will also enable the document to be used in a practical way, allowing material to be extracted and copied for ease of use.
The role of the EIU is to provide the evidence, as far as it is available, to support the development of effective integrated care for drug users. The Executive has now set up an Implementation Group with wide representation to advise on implementation of integrated care for drug users based on that evidence.
THANK YOU We should like to thank all those who contributed to the work on integrated care through membership of groups and attendance at workshops for their knowledge and expertise, ideas and comments. We should also like to thank those who participated in the Scottish Drugs Forum service users' focus groups. |
Effective Interventions Unit
September 2002
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