DUMFRIES AND GALLOWAY
ALCOHOL AND DRUG PARTNERSHIP

Minute of meeting held on 23rd October 2015 at 10.00am in

Meeting Room 4, Crichton Hall, Dumfries

Present: Andrew Carnon, Chair, Joint Interim Director of Public Health

Bill Sturgeon, Police Scotland

Vikki Binnie, South West Scotland Community Justice Authority

Mairi Dunn, NHS, Finance

David Coulter Third Sector

Dennis Cameron, Third Sector

Jackie Davies, Acting Alcohol & Drug Partnership Co-ordinator

Apologies: Alex McCallum, Criminal Justice Social Services

Attending: Mrs Diane Brough (Executive Assistant to Director of Public Health)

Item
1 / Apologies for absence
Apologies for absence were noted as above.
2. / Dr Carnon welcomed everyone to his first meeting as Chair of the Alcohol and Drug Partnership. He also informed the group that Jackie Davies will be undertaking the interim role as Acting Alcohol & Drug Partnership Co-ordinator for 3 months.
3. / Matters Arising
ADP Budgets/Other Funding Options 16-18 year old substance misusers
Indentified at the last meeting there was a significant under spend in this year’s budget equating to approximately £70k. Agreed to discuss this in more detail at today’s meeting under agenda Item 7 ADP Budget.
Recruitment of ADP Coordinator
The Chair informed members that the job description has been matched at a Band 7. This is now ready to go to advert and will be processed within the next few weeks.
Alcohol and Drug Waiting Times
Jackie Davies reported that the Jan – Mar 15 waiting times target for clients who started their treatment within 3 weeks was not met, only achieving 89%, however was pleased to report that figures published for April – June had returned to normal, at 94%. Jackie also highlighted that one service did not comply with recording data due to sickness absence but expected that this will be rectified before the figures are next reported on.
The Chair also queried about the outstanding action against Jim Parker re post in the West. Jackie confirmed that she would liaise with Moira to confirm whether this has been taken forward or not.
Action: Jackie to liaise with Moira Cossar re post in the West.
4. / Opiate Replacement Therapy (ORT)
Jackie highlighted that one of the difficulties obtaining ORT data was that the Alcohol and Drug Partnerships (ADPs) nationally, including Dumfries and Galloway, were unable to provide basic information on individuals who were prescribed Opiate Replacement Therapy (ORT).
A local study took place at the end of December 2013, to establish what information was available from the NHS Specialist Drug and Alcohol Service and also from GP practices involved in Shared Care for drug users. This study highlighted that the NHS Specialist’s data recording system was unable to extract the relevant data and it required intensive hours copying information to spreadsheets before analysis could take place. The GP services did not provide any information on ORT therapies and this was also provided by the NHS Specialist Service. The report also recommended a change to the data in the Local Enhanced Service (LES) for GPs contract, to allow better data to be collated from their systems.
To date meetings have taken place between representatives from GP Practices, Primary Care Development, and Pharmacy. The GP Practices have said that they cannot provide all the required information without possibly some change being made to their systems, while Pharmacy also highlighted that information was limited because the NHS Specialist System does not have the CHI number recorded on the scripts, therefore only approximately 24% of all prescriptions have the CHI number on them. Moira Cossar is currently liaising with the software company about amendments to the software system to include the CHI number.
The Chair expressed concern re obtaining GP data because work has been progressing over the last 18 months with Graham Gault and Graham MacIroy. Mairi Dunn said that should funding be required to support this, consideration could be given to a one off payment.
Action:
Jackie Davies to liaise with Graham Gault & Graham MacIlroy re GP Data.
Jackie to meet with Moira Cossar to discuss the issues with the NHS SDAS system and what progress is being made with software company.
Jackie to raise this issue at the ADP Co-ordinators meeting.
Jackie also sought clarity on the ORT Accountable Officer and agreed she should liaise with her colleagues nationally to gain clarity about this role.
5. / Alcohol Related Deaths
Alcohol Related Deaths have now become a Ministerial Priority. The statistics demonstrate a trend that they are coming down but noted we cannot be complacent around this. Jackie attended an Alcohol Focus event in Glasgow where discussion took place on what ADPs are required to do to tackle alcohol related deaths. Alcohol Focus had received some suggestions from the Scottish Government, which included a whole population approach; using alcohol related deaths case studies to establish a profile for alcohol deaths and setting up local alcohol related deaths groups. It was agreed that ADPs would request a consistent national approach similar to that for drug related deaths. Jackie proposed three possible options to support taking this work forward they are:
Option 1. Explore the existing informal process between NHS Alcohol Liaison Nurse and the Adult Substance Misuse Social Worker to determine the processes and whether this could be expanded to include other relevant agencies – becoming a “near misses”/”at risk” group.
Option 2. Establish an alcohol related deaths review group to examine confirmed alcohol deaths.
Option 3. Establish one group that examines both confirmed alcohol deaths and near misses/at risk.
Concern was raised around how accurate the data is and how it is captured. Agreed that Jackie should liaise with colleagues at the next ADP Coordinators meeting and also with colleagues in Glasgow as they have already set up and Alcohol Related Death Group.
Action:
Jackie to speak to colleagues as highlighted above and feedback to next ADP meeting.
6. / Feedback ADP 3 Year Delivery Plan
Jackie shared with the group feedback that had been received following submission of the 3 year Delivery Plan. Areas requiring improvement were discussed and agreed that Jackie should liaise with the support officers to obtain clarity around specific points, so better informed for the next plan in 3 years.
Jackie suggested that she could bring updates to the ADP every 6 months to begin planning and this was welcomed. Areas that Jackie has already identified include workforce development, logic models and local outcomes identifying who has key responsibility in taking them forward.
Action:
Jackie to provide 6 monthly update reports where appropriate and plan into future agendas.
7. / ADP Budgets
Mairi Dunn reported that the financial position had not moved much since the last meeting. Noted funding was agreed at the last meeting for Wonkaland, however, this still left approx £72k, with a further £7k underspend predicted, providing the ADP Coordinator post appointment is made early next year.
If monies are not spent appropriately we need to be able to feedback to Scottish Government explaining why we are not spending it.
Jackie provided a breakdown of possible projects that would help absorb part of the existing budget allocation, however concerns were raised about undertaking such a process at the ADP meeting. The Chair agreed that a more robust process requires to be in place for future spend, where bids are made to ADP, but given current time constraints there was a need to proceed with today’s bids and the group agreed.
The following details spend that was either agreed or refused as highlighted below.
1.  ADSSWS – Start-up costs info management system. Future on-going costs will be picked up from their own budgets.
Agreed
2.  DAVWAP – 100,000 drink mats with alcohol message on one side and domestic abuse messages on the other. Total of £3k.
Agreed on the basis it was only for one year.
3.  Taxi stewards over festive season - Police Scotland have secured £2k funding from Nithsdale Area Committee and £1k from Police Scotland and were seeking a further £1k from ADP.
Agreed
4.  Naloxone Project - £3k fund initially for 10 peer local educators trained to undertake Naloxone training in Dumfries and Gretna in the first instance.
Agreed. David requested that the number of new volunteers are shared with Third Sector as they would find this helpful given they recruit approximately 1000 volunteers per year. Jackie agreed to link with the project to ensure this information is cascaded to Third Sector.
5.  Service User involvement and staff training - £15k.
Agreed.
6.  CLD first proposal doing outreach work 16-18yr olds and CLD proposes additional hours to do community based work. Seek to identify those youths. There was no links to ADP priorities or outcomes, but it could be linked into some outcomes around the whole population approach.
The second CLD proposal was to conduct action research around the needs of 16-18 yr olds who misuse drugs and alcohol. It was felt that there was a need to establish whether there were any other local studies available and that if research was to be conducted, a more robust design and plan would be required. This could be considered in the future if it was determined to be a need.
Action: Further clarity required around proposal. Jackie to circulate paper and to liaise with Lilian Cringles as this was not the original request that came forward.
Not approved at this stage.
Action: Di to share with Jackie Davies the SLA template for projects within DGHW.
8. / Any Other Competent Business
The Chair reported on the ADP Chair meeting he attended.
Discussion took place around who was best to Chair ADP. Acknowledged that it is normally someone from Local Authority or a Police background who are appointed to this role, but it was noted that there are also a couple of Chairs appointed from Third Sector. There are currently only two from Health and suggested that given budget commitments this was not an ideal situation. Argyll and Bute have just gone to advert and it was considered to be a very interesting and robust process. It is hoped that whoever was appointed could attend the next ADP Chair meeting to feedback.
The Chair also reported that the Government spend review is the tightest it has ever been and nobody is quite sure what services are going to be available in the future.
Discussed how ADPs sit in relation to the new Integrated Joint Board (IJB) however comments were made that there may not be a role for the ADPS as IJBs develop.
Going forward the ‘Road to Recovery’ is key. The Minister has signed up to this and focusing on three themes, drug deaths, harm reduction i.e. public injecting rooms, and quality - challenging Boards on how we measure our performance. Highlighted that DAISy (Drug and Alcohol Information System) will help, but is not the whole answer.
In relation to the ‘Road to Recovery’ this will not only be work to assist dependent users but also visually looking to progress this work across communities so they can support and welcome recovery and decrease stigma within communities. Scottish Government also want to do more work around employing those placed in the community and more work is required with employees to help support this.
Discussion took place around alcohol licensing and over provision, with the general consensus was that this has not been effective. More support required from the Government to give direction and agreed that feedback would be given to the Ministers about this.
Vikki made reference to the recent consultation on The Rehabilitation of Offenders Act and how it could make some big changes around the disclosure of offending history, for the purposes of employment. Vikki also informed the group about the National Strategy Event on 9th December around new Community Justice Partnership and Dumfries and Galloway Community Planning Partnership to decide who needs to represent these groups.
Bill Sturgeon reported that Police Scotland will be receiving an inspection visit from HMIC. Information will be cascaded out to various partners around changes to Police Scotland. He also reported that in relation to the festivals this year across Dumfries and Galloway, feedback had been very positive with the exception of the Eden Festival where more robust support requires to be put in place.
9. / Date and time of next meetings
5th February 2016 at 10.00am in Lochar South Meeting Room, Crichton Hall
24th June 2016 at 10.00am in Lochar South Meeting Room, Crichton Hall
2nd September 2016 at 10.00am in Lochar South Meeting Room, Crichton Hall
9th December 2016 at 10.00am in Lochar South Meeting Room, Crichton Hall