Agenda item

Miriam Bullock, Director of Public Health, introduced a report that summarised the population need, the national policy context, the services available, and recent and current delivery plans.

Alcohol and drug use remained an important cause of preventable harm in Islington. As well as affecting health and wellbeing, it had social, housing, economic, crime and community safety impacts affecting individuals, families and communities, and was a cause and consequence of health inequalities. Understanding and reducing the health harms of drug and alcohol use was a longstanding area of focus for Public Health.

Islington commissioned a range of services to meet the needs of people that use drugs or alcohol.

The following was noted during the discussion of this agenda item:

·       There were significant overlaps between drug and alcohol needs and several mental health conditions. Drug and alcohol use was associated with homelessness, including rough sleeping, contact with the criminal justice system, and with exploitation. The Committee noted that the Council had received an additional funding of £637k form the GLA to continue to fund the support team which provided intensive floating support to individuals with a history of rough sleeping to live independently.

·       Exposure to drug and alcohol used by a parent or carer presented a safeguarding risk to children and adolescents. It was noted that in Islington, 51 per 1,000 children aged 0-17 years lived in households where a parent had drug or alcohol problems. This was higher than across its statistical neighbours.

·       Data from 2020/21 evidenced that Islington had the highest prevalence of opiate and/or crack cocaine use (OCU) in London (rate of 21.5 per 1,000 population), and the 5th highest prevalence out of all local authorities in England. However, the Committee noted that this data was slightly outdated and had requested to receive updated data. Officers informed the Committee there was always a delay in producing and collating data and the data provided on the report was the first prevalence estimates received in seven years as it had taken a long time to pull that data together.

·       The Committee noted that the data provided in the report were modelled estimates and the data was collected by using a sophisticated technique which required looking at lots of different data sources and combining them together.

·       In response to a question regarding drug overdose, Officers advise that to reduce the risk of overdose, the service provided advice on harm reduction and was looking to connect people who were most vulnerable and were at greatest risk of overdose, to as many advise and support services as possible.

·       Officers also advised that work had been done to improve awareness across front-facing services. Residents with the greatest need had access to same-day assessment and prescribing.

·       In response to a question form the Committee regarding synthetic drugs, Officers advised that guidance were issued nationally around new and emerging risks of drugs including synthetic drugs.

·       Officers also highted the importance to improve pathway for people who leave prison with drug and alcohol needs and improving their access to continuing their treatment in the community. This was also a key metric in the national strategy in improving rates of continuity of care between prison and community services.

RESOLVED:

The Committee to note the report.