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Introduction
This document invites your views about the proposed National Quality Standards for Substance Misuse Services in Scotland.
To date there has been no overarching agreed framework which describes the quality of provision and delivery required in services for drug misusers and people with alcohol problems. During the Scottish Executive's Review of Drug Treatment and Rehabilitation Services in 2003 this emerged as a major issue and the Action Plan published in October 2004 recommended development of national standards with an emphasis on outcomes for service users, together with systems for monitoring and evaluation.
The Regulation of Care (Scotland) Act 2001 (the Act) established a system of care regulation in Scotland. The Act's purpose is to provide greater protection for people in need of care services. The Act empowers Scottish Ministers to make regulations and orders to meet the Act's requirements.
In order to raise the level of care in Scotland, and ensure that service users receive the same quality of care no matter where they live, Scottish Ministers have developed national care standards for a wide range of care services.
In 2002, to form part of these, Scottish Ministers published National Care Standards for Care Homes for People with Drug and Alcohol Misuse Problems.
The standards are based on the following principles:
- Dignity
- Privacy
- Choice
- Safety
- Realising potential
- Equality and diversity
These draft Quality Standards intend to build on the principles that were detailed in that document and extend these to all types of service intended for drug misusers and people with alcohol problems. In common with the National Care Standards, the Quality Standards have also been written from the point of view of the service user.
To begin the development of a workable framework of quality standards, representatives of drug and alcohol services, service commissioners and regulatory bodies such as the Care Commission and the Social Work Inspection Agency have met with the Executive and formed a steering group (list in Annex 1).
This Steering Group arrived at a consensus about the underlying principles on which the development of quality standards would be based. These are:
- There should be a set of common standards across Scotland, published by Scottish Ministers but with local ownership.
- There should be no added burden on services (in the form of another layer of inspections) without being of clear benefit.
- Any evaluation of the use of quality standards should be supportive and address those aspects of practice not covered in existing inspections.
- The standards will cover both drug and alcohol services.
- The implementation of the standards will seek to improve services.
- Development should build on existing good practice.
- There should be substantial service user and community input to any evaluation of the implementation of the standards.
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