Doctors, former drug users, healthcare managers and charities, among others, have formed a unique new partnership to drive up standards in drug and alcohol treatment in England and help more people achieve recovery.
The Substance Misuse Skills Consortium launches today (22 November) with an online gateway, the Skills Hub, offering easy access to hundreds of resources to help front line drug and alcohol workers improve services and achieve better results for those in their care.
This new resource gives everyone in the field the chance to share best practice and work together towards recovery for service users.
The chairman of the Skills Consortium, William Butler, said:
“Everyone involved in drug and alcohol treatment wants to help users overcome addiction and achieve safe sustained recovery and reintegration into their communities. This is an important new initiative to harness the extensive knowledge in the sector to create a highly skilled and ambitious workforce to enable drug and alcohol users to succeed in treatment.”
Senior keyworker Zoe Gatland, who works with the Lifeline Project’s Blackburn young people’s service, said:
“The Skills Consortium website looks fantastic. I look forward to using it myself and would encourage other practitioners to try this valuable resource.”
The NTA is providing the secretariat for the consortium. Paul Hayes, Chief Executive, said:
“This is a home-grown initiative by employers and provider organisations to improve the skills and clinical practice of the drug and alcohol treatment workforce, and the NTA is helping to enable it become a self-sufficient operation.”
A challenging programme of work for the consortium in the coming year will support services in meeting the recovery ambitions of their users. It will include forming a sector-led consensus on how to develop the evidence base that supports effective treatment, ensuring that qualifications and training meet the needs of treatment services, and adding even more online resources to the Skills Hub.
Notes to editors
- The Skills Consortium website can be found at www.skillsconsortium.org.uk
- The Skills Consortium has been open for membership since July 2010 and currently has 170 full and associate members
- The Skills Consortium executive committee members are:
Royal College of General Practitioners Substance Misuse Unit | Dr Linda Harris |
Lifeline Project Ltd | Ian Wardle |
The Alliance | Ursula Brown |
DrugScope | Martin Barnes |
Adfam | Vivienne Evans |
Royal College of Psychiatrists | Dr Owen Bowden-Jones |
Royal College of Nursing | Ellie Gordon |
British Psychological Society | Andre Geel |
Greater Manchester West Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust | Dr Louise Sell |
Federation of Drug and Alcohol Professionals | Carole Sharma |
eATA | Katie Hill |
Skills for Health | Marc Lyall |
Association of Higher Education Programmes in Substance Misuse | Dr Andy Ashenhurst |
Barnsley DAAT | Diana Powell |
National HR Group for Substance Misuse | Elizabeth Flegg |
National Treatment Agency for Substance Misuse | Paul Hayes |
Service user and Vice Chair | Jason Gough |
Chair | William Butler |
- For further information about the Skills Consortium please email info@skillsconsortium.org.uk
- Press enquiries only please to Lynne Nasti, Senior Communications Officer (Media), NTA (on behalf of the Substance Misuse Skills Consortium), on 020 7972 1920 (business hours) or 07747 535961 (out of hours).