Views
Adult Treatment Services
Public Health North Tyneside carried out an 8-week consultation process between July and September 2018 with service users, carers and key stakeholders, seeking their views on the drug and alcohol treatment service and allow them to provide input to inform the new service.
Overall, there was an overwhelming positive response to the consultation. 65% of respondents stating they were very satisfied with the services provided from NTRP and 92% of respondents were satisfied with the needle exchange service. This was used to inform the new drug and alcohol service in North Tyneside.
In 2022, the Adult Treatment Service, NTRP, workforce attended an away day, where they had discussion about the service and what has been challenging. The key themes that emerged were:
- Increasing cost of living is impacting on engagement with the service. There has been a marked reduction in attendance to groups as people cannot afford the travel.
- Difficulty in agreeing joint working with Community Treatment Teams, Talking Therapies and the difference in services thresholds for referrals is causing problems.
- Recruitment issues are leading to high caseloads for staff, making it difficult to do intensive work with service users.
- The physical health pathway is very good but needs additional resource.
- The service has seen an increase in deaths which has had an impact on staff welfare.
- Complexities of service users coming into treatment.
Children and Young People
The Schools Health Education Unit carried out a survey with pupils in North Tyneside, in years 8 to 10, in 2022. Respondents were asked if they were concerned about the drug use of certain people. The results were similar to previous years, showing that:
- 13% of pupils had been concerned about the drug use of a family member.
- 16% had been concerned about the drug use of a friend.
- 15% had been concerned about the drug use of someone else.