John Penrose

Conservative Party | Weston-super-Mare

Addiction Treatment Centres (Weston-super-Mare)

24th January 2006

John Penrose (Weston-super-Mare) (Con): About two to three years ago, I encountered a growing wave of concern in my constituency about the number of drug addicts that my constituents saw in and around the town. On inquiring into the problem in some depth the following year, I decided to launch the Cleaner Weston campaign in the summer of 2004. The aims of that campaign of which I have already provided details to the Minister were threefold. The first and perhaps most crucial aim was to ensure that there was as high as possible standard of addiction treatment and addiction care post treatment for addicts if they were sent to Weston-super-Mare in an attempt to break their habit.

We are lucky in Weston-super-Mare to have a small number of extremely high quality registered addiction treatment centres. They are inspected regularly by the Commission for Social Care Inspection under the terms of the Care Standards Act 2000 and are run by able and dedicated people. The centres are not part of the problem, but part of the solution. However, I discovered that, in addition to the small number of excellent addiction treatment centres, there could be a large unknown number of unregistered centres that provide either treatment or post-treatment care throughout the town.

The difficulty has been in finding out how many centres there are and whether the services that they provide are any good. That difficulty stems entirely from the fact that, so far as I can see, no one is responsible for inspecting the centres, checking that they are doing a good job and that their standards and treatment of care are up to scratch. I suspect therefore that, as with all human endeavour, some of them are extremely well run and provide a high quality of treatment for the addicts in their care, while inevitably some of them might not be as good. The problem in Weston-super-Mare and probably throughout the rest of the country is that, without adequate standards and regular inspection of treatment and care centres against those standards, no one knows whether the addicts are being provided with the care and attention that they desperately need.

I have begun campaigning with the police and the local council for a local accreditation scheme to take into account the registered care treatment centres and also the unregistered treatment centres. I am pleased that, during the past few months, North Somerset council announced plans to introduce a local accreditation scheme in north Somerset for all addiction treatment and care centres in Weston-super-Mare and other parts of the county. I think that I am right in saying that it will be the first such scheme in the country. It is based on the criteria that have been laid out, at least in draft, by the National Treatment Agency for Substance Misuse and the European Association for the Treatment of Addiction.

The crucial point about the new accreditation scheme is that, under the existing rules in the Care Standards Act, registered treatment centres are inspected under a series of criteria laid down originally for residential care homes and nursing homes. They are good and worthwhile standards and I do not mean to decry them, but they are not, and were not intended to be, aimed at the central reason for the addiction treatment centres to exist, which is the quality of addiction treatment or addiction care post treatment that they provide. Clearly, it is important to have standards that are fit for purpose and aimed squarely at such an important and specialised area of care.

A proper addiction accreditation scheme is vital. We are introducing one in north Somerset and I should be surprised if the problems that we are experiencing with the quality of addiction treatment and care centres in Weston are unique to Weston-super-Mare. If the Minister considered other such centres in other parts of the country, I suspect that she would find such problems reflected throughout Great Britain.

Mr. David Burrowes (Enfield, Southgate) (Con): I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Weston-super-Mare (John Penrose) on raising such an important subject. I have a particular interest in the area because, as a criminal law solicitor for 11 years, I dealt with many drug addicts who were referred to the units in his constituency that he described.

Does my hon. Friend agree that there is a desperate need for an increased number of quality residential units that provide the level of care that we all wish to see, and that such units should be extended as good practice across the country? So far as exit strategy and aftercare are concerned, I have seen clients who attended units without the right exit strategy, and where there was not a holistic approach to their drug addiction and other needs. Some ended up on the streets of Weston-super-Mare, committing further crimes and going back into the system.

John Penrose : I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. On his first point, a potentially good example of an accreditation scheme is being introduced in north Somerset, and I hope that the Minister will agree to consider that as a pilot scheme that might be rolled out across the country. I shall return to his second point presently, as I plan to address that issue later.

As I was saying, the quality of addiction treatment is vital. The second issue on which we have been focusing in Weston-super-Mare is whether there is notification to the authorities in north Somerset when people from other parts of Britain who are referred for treatment are sent to the town. If someone who is incredibly vulnerable embarks on a course of treatment in Weston-super-Mare, or anywhere, it is important that the local health service, housing service and police be properly notified of that person's arrival, so that if something goes wrong and the person concerned needs additional support or help, the local services are aware of that person's circumstances and can provide appropriate support.

I am afraid to say, however, that that is not what we have found. Since being elected to Parliament seven or eight months ago, I have been writing letters to referring agencies around the country asking questions under the Freedom of Information Act 2000. Sadly, a large proportion are not informing the north Somerset authorities of the arrival of the addicts that they are sending for treatment in Weston-super-Mare. That is not good for addicts. If something goes wrong, such as a relapse, and if an addict is picked up by the police without the police knowing that that person is in the middle of a care plan provided by a referring agency in some other part of the country, the addict will go to the local magistrates court and will not be treated in the right way. However, if information can be sought from the agency, a much more effective set of sentences and actions can be taken.

It is crucial that that communication loop is properly closed and connected. I am pleased to say that there are examples of excellent referring authorities around the country. Oxfordshire is one example: in the last two and a half years more than 100 people have been sent by Oxfordshire to Weston-super-Mare for treatment, and in almost every single case those concerned have managed to inform the local authorities of when people are arriving, where they are going, and when they will be there. So we are not asking for the unusual or the impossible: it is being done and good practice already exists.

However, rather than one Opposition Back-Bench MP writing letters to referring agencies around the country about people who are sent to his constituency, a more effective approach, if possible, would be Government action pointing out that, wherever addicts are being sent for treatment or support, referring agencies owe them a duty of care to keep people in the relevant referral areas informed, and that if they are failing to do that they should resume promptly.

My final point is that made earlier by my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, Southgate (Mr. Burrowes). When someone is referred to Weston-super-Mare or another place for addiction treatment or care, that referral should be part of a unified care plan. A session in a treatment centre for several months should be only one step on the road to recovery, and one step on the road towards piecing a life back together and enabling someone to re-enter society and rejoin their family—if that is appropriate—and to get themselves another job. Too often, however, we have found from writing to referring agencies that some of them do not know what has happened to a large proportion of referred addicts in Weston-super-Mare. If there is an effective care plan, the agencies should know what has happened after treatment.

The fear is that if the agencies do not know where those people are, either there may have been no effective care plan in the first place and they were shovelled out of the referring agency's area to get the problem off its front doorstep; or, when the addicts arrived for treatment in Weston-super-Mare, they may have failed to complete the course, relapsed, left the course and ended up on a street corner in Weston, possibly looking for their next hit and probably at high risk of an overdose, which is most likely after an attempt to break a habit, at severe risk of ill health and, from the point of view of local residents, likely significantly to increase the local crime statistics. Addicts in relapse, or those who have not got rid of their habit and have a chaotic lifestyle, are incapable of holding down a job. Therefore, the only way in which they can fund their habit is through crime.

Mr. Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con): I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate. I know how hard he works on behalf of his constituents, and he is raising an important subject. Is not the transition from prison or a place of rehabilitation into normal society a twilight zone through which too many people too often fall? They are not given the necessary support to resume a normal life, and people who might undergo a gradual transition to a sensible lifestyle are sadly lost at that last point.

John Penrose : My hon. Friend is absolutely right. As part of a complete care package and plan, typically after leaving treatment, most care plans will involve a series of steps through half-way houses, dry houses, education and training and voluntary work as a way of re-entering society as one of its fully functioning members. My hon. Friend is correct to point out that people can fall through the cracks in that process. That is why a properly functioning care plan is vital.

My final point to the Minister is that rather than having a solitary Back-Bench MP such as myself with a particular problem in his constituency writing to local agencies that have referred people for treatment in Weston-super-Mare, a far more effective way of dealing with the problem would be through Government action to remind agencies of the duty of care they owe to people whom they send for treatment—in Weston or anywhere else. That duty is to ensure that people complete their care programme and that when they leave their treatment in any place, particularly Weston, they are not left to sit on a street corner and make their own way.

Those are the three critical issues, and there is a big opportunity for the nation and the Government to pick up on them. I hope that the Government will consider what is happening in Weston-super-Mare and use it wherever possible—potentially nationally—as a pilot for roll-out. I hope, also, that the Minister has had a chance to study the report that the local police authority published, and which my predecessor, Brian Cotter, referred to the Secretary of State for Home Affairs. It set out several of those points in greater detail. I look forward to the Minister's reply.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Caroline Flint) : I congratulate the hon. Member for Weston-super-Mare (John Penrose) on securing the debate. It is a matter of concern to him and his constituents, and to myself, too. Drug treatment today has improved on that of a few years ago. The Government have invested unprecedented amounts of money to provide drug treatment and to do exactly what the hon. Gentleman said: to make better sense of the impact of drug addiction on our criminal justice system, so that we do not continue narrowly, but move from arresting people for crimes that are linked to their drug addiction by giving them a community or custodial sentence without any drug treatment, to dealing with the underlying causes of their acquisitive crime, which is usually the area in which drug addicts find themselves.

During the past few years, the Government have linked crime and drug addiction. The link has been important in obtaining a commitment to, a focus on and a prioritisation of that area, through the provision of resources to boost the amount of drug treatment available—whether residential rehabilitation, detox or prescription. The Government have also improved the links between police stations, the courts system and jails. That is why, for example, people are now being tested on arrest in a range of crimes for evidence of class A drugs. So, at the very point of arrest, we can start engaging with people.

The Drugs Act 2005, in whose passage I was pleased to play a part, also makes an assessment in line with the individual's needs mandatory following a positive drugs test. That then follows that person to court, because if they start engaging in their drug problem, it will impact in court upon whether a custodial or community sentence is required. Whether their sentence ends up being community-based or custodial—which is important to the hon. Gentleman's choice of debate today—that seamless approach is needed to ensure that the person is kept on track within a care plan for their drug addiction.

I have seen the information that the hon. Gentleman has sent, and know that it is important for the probation service, which has a role relating to those receiving a drug treatment and testing order—although that term may presently be changed. Basically, as someone on a community-based order involves that service in drug treatment as part of their commitment, a probation service which feels that a residential rehabilitation should form part of that treatment should take ownership for that individual. I was certainly concerned by the evidence that probation services were not informing police or others in the community about someone coming into their area.

John Penrose : One fact of which the Minister may not be aware, but which has developed in Weston-super-Mare in recent months, is that the national probation service has tightened up considerably in response to some of the points that I have been raising. It has withdrawn its patronage from one or two of the addiction, treatment or support places in Weston-super-Mare as a result.

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