'It's a simple fact, the 'evidence based clinical treatment methods' used to treat addiction and dependency do not work'.

Annually the NHS costs the tax payer £1.5billion for drug, alcohol and smoking treatments which 'do not work, have poor outcomes and bad results' as targets have focused on the 'numbers in treatment' rather than the outcome of that treatment, this is wasteful and irresponsible at any time, especially in the current economic climate.

But now the coalition Government plans to move to outcome targets rather than process targets. Health Minister Andrew Lansley said "I want to free the NHS from bureaucracy and targets that have no clinical justification and move to an NHS which measures its performance on patient outcomes'.

Professor Karol Sikora
'The art of medicine is being able to sort out the important from the trivial rapidly and cheaply. Maintaining health – physical, psychological and spiritual – in what many perceive to be a toxic world is a major challenge. So let's use all the weapons we have; end destructive arguments about complementary medicine, internecine disputes between professional groups and the endless expansion of bureaucracy chasing elusive and often irrelevant targets. Outcomes are the only key to success'.

We agree with Professor Sikora who is speaking in the best interest of the patient which are over looked with the present system, he wants to use ALL the tools available to treat a patient not just drugs, he wants to involve complementary medicine, stop the mutually destructive disputes which block such treatments and focus on the patients and their health rather than bureaucracy.

Improving Patient Care While Reducing Costs
By introducing our addiction therapy treatment into GP's practices or walk-in centers nationwide, patient's would have access to an out-patient treatment process which is effective in helping to stop smoking, stop drinking or stop using drugs. Patients could attend on a needs basis and detox either quickly or over a longer period of time to suit their physical or emotional needs. Relapsing would no longer be an issue or a waste of initial treatment costs [which are substantially lower] as patients would simply return to be treated again with further top up treatment sessions to help maintain their non-dependency taking just one to two hours per session. It is estimated up to £800million per annum could be saved using this model and it also would help facilitate the goal of redesigning the NHS, with services moved out of hospitals and into the community.

Current treatment costs including smoking cessation are £1.5billion per annum and deliver success rates of just 12% for smoking cessation nationally, alcohol treatments have been described as dire by a Health select committee of MPs and drug treatment success rates are very low at just 4.3%, (even this figure is disputed by experts who say 'the numbers of addicts emerging from Government treatment programmes are at the same level as if there had been no treatment at all').

There are also an additional cost savings available as smokers cost the NHS £5billion per annum while drug and alcohol abuse cost society up to £29billion per annum, a huge proportion of this £34billion could be saved with more effective treatment tools.

Methadone prescribing alone costs £300million per annum, so over the next 5 year term, the coalition government could save £1.5billion by using our treatment methods to help end methadone dependency, an area the new government wants to overhaul.

Tackling Problem Drug Use Report 2010
A Report by the National Audit office confirms 'The Government is spending £1.2 billion in 2009-10 with the objective of bringing down the costs to society of problem drug use of £15 billion a year. But there is no framework in place for evaluating the achievements of the 2008 Strategy which limits Departments' understanding of the overall value for money achieved and where future resources should be prioritised. Without an evaluative framework for the Strategy as a whole we are not able to conclude positively on value for money'.

Critics say 'this is ridiculous, the NHS is spending £1.2bn a year on their drug treatment strategy but have no idea of whether or not it is successful. The lack of a 'evaluative framework' is either, intentional so the NTA can hide their dismal success rate, which was a questionable 4.3% in 2009 or gross incompetence'.

As a result of this failure, Britain has one of the highest levels of drug addiction in Europe. Drug and alcohol abuse costs society around £39 billion per year, so there has never been a greater need for change and better treatment options. The CBI argee that present government policy actually restricts innovation and change rather than utilising it and 'public procurement should be a driver, not a blocker, of innovation'. Read their full report 'Best of Health' here.

Breakthrough Britain - Addiction Report 2007
"During a decade of Labour drugs strategy, policy itself has become an intrinsic part of the problem. It has been a costly investment in failure. The combination of centralised targets and a ‘medical management' approach to treatment has further entrenched addiction, adding to intergenerational cycles of substance dependency".Click here for further details.

Report on Addiction Policy
The Centre for Policy Studies report on government addiction policy says Labour is 'squandering billions on ineffective treatment' and 'costly treatment programmes which do not work'. The Tory's have said they will abandon Labours failed 'harm reduction' policy. “Labour always focuses on the process while we think what really matters is whether you are better after your treatment,” a Conservative spokesman said.

Who is to blame for the current failure of NHS treatments?
It is widely acknowledged there is a culture of inertia and inefficiency that is rife throughout the public sector. In the public sector there is no competitive edge; no incentive to cuts costs or improve efficiency. We have said since 2006 the blame lies with the 'monolithic bureaucracy' and 'monumental incompetence' by those who are responsible for commissioning new treatments, they should be taking the lead and introducing better treatment methods but are failing to do so as ex-health secretary Andy Burnham stated last autumn [2009] that 'in-house NHS bodies should be the "preferred provider" for existing [drug/alcohol] services'. In practice, this is irrespective of whether it can supply the required services, or to the required standards, which of course they can not. Stephen Dunn, director of strategy for the East of England Health Authority says the complete opposite, 'We need the best provider and this is the only way forward. Only a private company, he says, will get 'real innovation and efficiency' into the NHS process'. As they [DoH/NHS] can not agree amongst themselves, nothing gets done and so they carry on with the same 'failing methods' hence why drug/alcohol problems have not got any better and are in fact, getting worse every year with drug deaths at an 8 years high, alcohol related deaths are up 40% in the last 10 years and liver disease has trebled. The CBI argee that present government policy actually restricts innovation and change rather than utilising it and 'public procurement should be a driver, not a blocker, of innovation'. Read their full report 'Best of Health' here. Drug and alcohol problems will continue to escalate as current treatment methods do not work.

The £1billion Non-Treatment Disaster
The NHS is not free, it costs the tax payer £115bn per annum, but the tax payer is not getting value for money [hence the need for reform] on average it costs £1,700.00 a week for someone with drug/alcohol problems to attend NHS detox and they are retained in treatment for 12 weeks at a total cost of £20,400.00 per person however the success rate of this 'process' is just 4%. Despite spending over £10bn on 'treatment' over the last 10years they have the worst success rates in treating addiction and dependency problems. The Centre for Policy Studies report on addiction policy confirmed 'Labour was squandering billions on ineffective treatment' and 'costly treatment programmes which do not work'. Critics agree 'the new government need to act and end this systemic failure which is unacceptable and a waste of public funds as over £1billion per annum is spent on ineffective and outdated methods of treating addiction, which do not work and have no real success rate or measurable value'. Critics say the situation is deplorable, 'how can one expect treatment outcomes to improve if they continue with the same failed treatment methods? It's a classic definition of 'madness' expecting better results while using the same failed treatment methods which have been proven 'ineffective' for the last 40 years, in effect, continue doing the same thing but expecting better results'. A Report by the National Audit office confirms 'The NHS is spending £1.2 billion in 2009-10. But there was no framework in place for evaluating the achievements of the 2008 Drug & Alcohol Strategy which limited the Departments' understanding of the overall value for money achieved and where future resources should be prioritised. Critics say 'this is ridiculous, they were spending £1.2bn a year on their treatment strategy but had no idea of whether or not it was successful. The lack of a 'evaluative framework' was either, intentional so the NTA can hide their dismal success rate or it was gross incompetence'. The Tory's have said they will abandon Labours failed 'harm reduction' policy and focus on 'abstinence' rather than 'addiction maintenance as 'we think what really matters, is whether you are better after your treatment', a Conservative spokesman said. But the BMA are already trying to strangle the reforms to prevent patient choice, improve efficiency and reduce NHS costs.

When will this treatment be available on the NHS?
We are working to achieve this goal and look forward to the change in treatment policy to allow patients more choice in their treatment methods. At present government policy is 'harm reduction' and focuses on 'addiction management' and not 'abstinence or detoxification', so the addiction services currently ignore treatments which help to stop addiction and dependency. In addition, the treatment services are forced to use 'other in-house NHS bodies as their "preferred provider" for existing services, irrespective of whether it can supply the required services, or to the required standards', as a result they are 'squandering billions on ineffective treatment' and 'costly treatment programmes which do not work'. The NHS is also 'very slow to commission non-pharmaceutical treatments due to NICE guidelines which automatically limits the knowledge or treatments they can draw on'. So it takes around 8 to 10 years to 'officially recognise' a successful alternative treatment as there is also a 'co-ordinated campaign to derail non-pharmaceutical treatments on the NHS'. One should not assume that if a non-pharmaceutical treatment is successful it would be automatically available on the NHS, as there are many obstacles to overcome or which could be swept aside by a change in policy. We will continue to seek NHS recognition for our treatments, as they are desperately needed and/or look forward to a change in government addiction policy.

New treatment options are urgently required and we welcome enquiries from the NHS.

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