Specialist Treatment

Improve the Effectiveness and Capacity of Specialist Treatment

Improving the effectiveness and capicity of specialist treatment is one of the High Impact Changes for reducing alcohol related harm. "Dependent drinkers represent a very high-risk group for alcohol-related hospital admissions. Providing evidenced based, effective treatment as well as increasing treatment opportunities for dependent drinkers may offer the most immediate opportunity to reduce alcohol-related admissions. Reviewing care pathways, access times and blockages into treatment offer opportunities to improve the local treatment system." [Signs for Improvement - Interventions to reduce alcohol related harm, DH 2009]

Each community should have access to a comprehensive range of evidence-based interventions to address the community needs for alcohol interventions.

Tiers of Interventions

Models of care for alcohol misusers (MoCAM) describes a four tier system of stepped care for alcohol misusers (DH, 2006). Tiers 1 and 2 are concerned with providing Identification and Brief Advice (IBA) and referrals . Tiers 3 and 4 interventions are concerned with the provision of specialist treatment:

MoCAM Specialist Treatment Tiers 3 and 4

Treatment Pathways

"Local Routes: Guidance for developing alcohol treatment pathways" [DH, 2009] provides good practice guidance on the development of integrated care pathways for people with alcohol problems - alcohol treatment pathways (ATPs). It is illustrated with a number of examples but is not intended to provide an exhaustive resource of off-the-shelf pathways.

Treatment Pathway Presentations:

• Alcohol Treatment Pathways - local routes Feb 2010
• Developing Care Pathways
  Workshop Presentation about developing integrated alcohol treatment pathways. Sean Meehan, Associate Delivery Manager, Alcohol Harm Reduction National Support Team, Department of Health and Alison Wheeler,...

Local Examples

There are many varied case studies of local inniatives from around the country. You can search for them on our projects search page using specialist treatment as a project type and project setting or just be using keywords.

Some case studies are listed here for ease of access:

• Bexley Treatment Care Pathway Guidance
• Knowsley Improving Access to Psychological Therapies
• Royal Bolton Hospital collaborative care for alcohol related liver disease and harm
• ChaMPs Alcohol Project 3 | Guidance on Delivering an Integrated Care Pathway for Alcohol Services

Peer Support

• SMART Recovery Project Evaluation Report 2010
  Full report and executive summary with headline findings of the evaluation research undertaken by Middlesex University to examine Alcohol Concern's SMART Recovery Project which has 18 groups in 4 regions...