DWP scraps retesting for chronically ill sickness benefits claimants

Chronically sick benefit claimants will no longer be required to prove they are still ill every six months, the work and pensions secretary has announced.

Employment support allowance will now continue automatically for those who have lifelong, severe health conditions with no prospect of improvement, Damian Green said.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/oct/01/dwp-scraps-retesting-for-chronically-ill-sickness-benefits-claimants

Public Health England Trends in Drug Use 1999-2014

The complete report is linked to Below the Executive Summary

Executive summary
This report presents year-by-year data on drug misuse deaths in England from 1999 to 2014. The Office for National Statistics (ONS) reported a 17% increase in drug misuse deaths registered in England in 2014, following an increase of 21% in 2013.
Public Health England, DrugScope and the Local Government Association held a national summit on drug-related deaths in January 2015, leading to a published report on the main points of the discussion at the summit and the publication of the first trends report by PHE using ONS data in July 2015. This report is an update to incorporate the most recent ONS data.
Presented by year of death, the updated analysis suggests that there was an increase of at least 17% in the number of drug misuse deaths between 2012 and 2013. Data for 2013 is assumed to be an undercount of the actual number occurring in that year as not all deaths in 2013 will yet have been registered. Provisional data for 2014, which will be significantly incomplete, suggests a further increase.
Across the period studied, opiates are the type of substance most frequently mentioned in drug misuse deaths, consistently mentioned in over four-fifths of deaths. The most commonly mentioned opiate drug is heroin, followed by methadone and tramadol. There was an increase of at least 21% in opiate deaths in 2013.
Alcohol was mentioned in combination with illicit drugs in just over one third (36%) of drug misuse deaths in 2012, a proportion that has remained similar in recent years.
Benzodiazepines are the most commonly mentioned non-opiate drug in drug misuse deaths (16% in 2012) and there was an increase of at least 21% in benzodiazepine deaths in 2013. Benzodiazepines are rarely the only drug mentioned in a death.
Mentions of cocaine and amphetamines have risen since around 2010, having fallen markedly before this. Drug misuse deaths where a new psychoactive substance (NPS) was mentioned continued to rise in 2012 (4% of drug misuse deaths), but provisional figures for 2013 suggest a fall, in contrast to the overall rise in drug misuse deaths.
Among heroin deaths, there is a clear long-term trend towards increased mentions of other substances alongside heroin, including alcohol, benzodiazepines and methadone, indicating increasingly complex poly-substance deaths.
The median age at drug misuse death has increased from 32 in 1999 to 41 in 2012. The majority of drug misuse deaths are among men (72% in 2012), although there is a long- term trend of increasing numbers among women.

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Trends in drug misuse deaths in England, 1999 to 2014

Over three-quarters of drug misuse deaths in 2012 were accidental poisonings. The remainder are classed as suicide and involve relatively high proportions of women, people from older age groups and mentions of opiates other than heroin and methadone.
An update of the matching undertaken between the ONS data and community treatment data from the National Drug Treatment Monitoring System (NDTMS) for 2007–2014 suggested a continuation of known trends:

•   the majority of individuals who suffered opiate misuse deaths in 2012 had not been in treatment since at least the start of 2007
  
•   there was little change in the proportion of opiate misuse deaths where the individual had recently been in treatment (ie, within one year), although there was a slight increase in the proportion where the individual was currently in treatment
  In addition, the updated matching found that the substantial increase in opiate misuse deaths in 2013 was slightly more pronounced for those with recent treatment compared to those who had not had treatment in the past year.
  PHE continues to investigate the trends around drug misuse death, including setting up a national expert group to lead a national inquiry in 2016. Five local events around England will review what is known nationally about DRDs, what local areas can tell us and what can be done to prevent deaths. The national group will then consider the findings alongside other relevant intelligence and publish conclusions and recommendations on what else needs to be done.
  Driven by the findings of the inquiry and by what we already know about drug misuse deaths and their prevention, PHE will:
  

•   now consider what additional advice and support we can provide to local authority commissioners and drug treatment providers
  
•   support improvements in local drug death review processes in 2016–17
  
•   continue to support local areas to further improve access to treatment, which
  appears to have a continuing protective effect
  
•   continue to provide commissioners with advice on provision of the opioid
  antagonist naloxone, following the legislative change to allow drug services to
  more easily supply naloxone
  
•   through the 2016 update to the clinical guidelines for drug misuse and drug
  dependence, cover many of the factors involved in drug-related deaths, such as
  smoking behaviour and supervised consumption of opioid substitute medicines
  
•   in 2016–17, improve the collation, analysis and dissemination of intelligence on
  the adverse health effects of a range of drugs 
  

http://www.nta.nhs.uk/uploads/trendsdrugmisusedeaths1999to2014.pdf

Reps Chris, (ISIS), Rob, (PCADS) and Will, CASA attended a mini workshop in blogging and how to change profile and add posts to the ICDAS Blog.

It was agreed that we would reinvigorate the blog and start adding content.

Thanks to all who took part -F Sikes, (coordinator)

It was great to see all LBI's drug & alcohol services represented again at the ICDAS monthly meeting on Tuesday, September 9th at Islington Town Hall. Thanks to all for your continuing committment. A very warm welcome to new SHP rep Judith and to Michael and Joanne from Cranstoun who have attended the last two meetings. Thanks also to Martin from LBI and to Tobias Morphet for presenting information about Peer Mentoring in the borough.

Frankie sikes - (Coordinator for Service User Representation, LBI)

 I would like to invite every service user to use this blog to air their views, ask questions, or moan about or praise their services.

Pharmacists Training Event - Thursday 15/05/2014

Pharmacists Training Event

ICDAS and ISIS service user lead Tobias Morphet were asked to support a service user to speak at a pharmacist's training event organised by LBI on Thursday May the 15th. LBI wanted someone with first hand experience to speak to the pharmacists about the stigma of using pharmacy prescribing services as a substance user. ICDAS rep Nathan Taylor was able to identify a service user who, along with Tobias, went ahead and presented to the pharmacists on the day. Many thanks to service user C for giving your time and passion to this important event. We have been told that the presentation went over very well.

ICDAS rep Nathan will be feeding back about the event at the monthly ICDAS meeting on Tuesday June  10th.

Social Justice Day for JCP staff - Monday 28/04/14

Social Justice Event

Representatives from ICDAS attended a Social Justice Day event for Jobcentre Plus staff on the 28th or April. The event was for local drug & alcohol services and others to have an opportunity to talk to Jobcentre staff about the challenges their service users face. The idea was that this would give staff better awareness of the issues/challenges that customers/organisations face and also give them an opportunity to improve joint working.

Apart from ICDAS reps, only one drug & alcohol service showed up on the day. SHP and ourselves had the opportunity to question JCP staff about what they knew about working with substance misuse clients and particularly about procedures for people on JSA who are entering treatment. We discovered a surprising lack of awareness among many JCP staff about what the procedures actually are with many of them giving conflicting information.

As a result of our experiences at the event ICDAS has decided to ask service users what problems they are encountering from the Jobcentre when entering treatment. Once we know precisely what the common problems are we will see if there is anything we can usefully do to improve the situation.

For everbody's information, here are three links to the key documents regarding what is supposed to happen.

Treatment Provider Referral Form TPR2

Process Document

JCP Single Point of Contact Document