Team tackling the misery of drugs and alcohol abuse

Alcohol and drugs misuse is a huge drain on the NHS and causes untold personal misery. That's why a co-ordinated strategy is important in tackling it, as Michael Owen tells Jane Bell

Michael Owen Senior Drugs and Alcohol Co-Ordinator, Northern Health & Social Services Board

Alcohol and drugs misuse is a huge drain on the NHS and causes untold personal misery. That's why a co-ordinated strategy is important in tackling it, as Michael Owen tells Jane Bell

Who is on the Board's Drug and Alcohol Co-ordination team and what are the main aims?

The Northern Drugs & Alcohol Co-Ordination Team (NDACT) is a multi-agency, cross-sectoral partnership, led and facilitated by the NHSSB. The team includes representatives from the voluntary and community sector, Northern Board, local Health & Social Services Trusts, Police Service, Probation Board, local Education & Library Boards and the Housing Executive.

Its primary role is the delivery of the DHSSPS's New Strategic Direction for Alcohol & Drugs 2006 - 2011 in the Northern Board area.

The team delivers this by assessing and addressing local need and has developed a Local Action Plan with 19 outcomes for 2006-2009. Co-ordination amongst the key stakeholders is vital in ensuring effective use of all resources and avoiding duplication.

What types of treatments and intervention programmes are available?

The team has successfully implemented a number of new services across the Northern Board area through the Action Plan including counselling and mentoring services for young people under 18, community and family support services, workforce development and training programmes, supported and direct access accommodation, targeted education and prevention programmes, expansion of our drug outreach service and specialist treatment services for young people and adults including our adult in-patient unit at Carrick-1 in Holywell.

We also have a unique partnership between the Northern Ireland Office (NIO), Homefirst Health & Social Services Trust and the Northern Board in the provision of services for injecting drug users based at Railway Street in Ballymena.

This service has recently been independently evaluated and researched and results have shown it to have one of the highest rates of engagement with injecting drug users in the UK.

How big a drain is drug and alcohol abuse on the health service?

There is no doubt that the misuse of both alcohol and drugs place a strain on the health service.

Most studies would suggest that 50-80% of patients who attend and A&E after 10pm on a Friday and Saturday night will have consumed alcohol.

A report compiled by the DHSSPS in 1999 estimated the social cost of alcohol misuse in Northern Ireland at 770m - and this did not include costs of drug misuse. In 2004/05 there were over 8,000 alcohol-related admissions to hospital, accounting for 1.56% of the overall admissions that year.

In the Northern Board our core addiction services would receive on average 1,300 referrals per year with an average breakdown of 70-80 % for alcohol misuse and 20-30% for drug misuse.

Who are the at-risk groups?

Studies show that more males than females use illicit drugs and the general age range of the problematic drug user would be 18-28 years.

With alcohol misuse, the age range of people presenting to treatment would be older (25-35). However, compared to 10 years ago, males and particularly females are now presenting to services at an earlier age.

Also, the average age for developing physical problems like cirrhosis of the liver has significantly dropped in the last 10-20 years.

Research clearly shows that those most at risk of developing alcohol and drugs problems come from deprived areas, have an unemployment history, family dysfunction and with little or no academic achievement.

What constitutes 'binge drinking' and who is most at risk?

Binge drinking is actually defined as a man drinking 10 or more units of alcohol in one session (five pints of normal strength beer) and a women drinking seven or more units of alcohol in one session (three small glasses of wine and a couple of vodkas).

Research has clearly shown that drinking above these levels can be harmful to your health and many of us actually binge drink regularly at weekends without realising.

Drug and alcohol abuse is often seen as self-inflicted and therefore, perhaps, less worthy of public spending in a cash-strapped NHS. What's your view?

It's easy to single out alcohol and drug misusers within the NHS but I would often respond to people who have this view by reminding them that many of the conditions that are deemed 'worthy' quite often will have drug or alcohol misuse as a causative factor.

Having spent over 20 years working with those who have alcohol and drug problems, I can assure you that I have never met anyone who would not like to change their life for the better and, as is often said to me, 'to lead a normal life'.

What is your career background and how does it help you in this role?

My background is in nursing and it was as a student nurse in the mid 1980s that I first developed an interest in the addiction field. A small minority of colleagues would have criticised patients who had been admitted with alcohol misuse over the weekend as 'wasting a bed'.

I moved to London in 1989 as a newly qualified Staff Nurse where I began to specialise in the treatment of addictions, particularly with injecting heroin users.

Having completed my degree in addictions in 1993, I moved into management with my last clinical post based in a drug and alcohol resource team in Scotland.

I then completed a year with the voluntary agency, Northlands, based in Derry as an Education Officer.

I joined the Eastern Drugs & Alcohol Co-Ordination Team in 1997 where I spent five happy years before joining the Northern Board over three years ago as Senior Drugs & Alcohol Co-Ordinator.