Crisis in residential care and treatment for addicts

EMERGENCY talks are due to be held to discover why occupancy rates at Scotland’s residential drug treatment centres are so low.

Figures have been released showing that Scotland’s drug deaths in 2011 were at a new high, with methadone linked to 47 per cent of deaths.

Now the Scottish Recovery Consortium has called a meeting to discuss the issue of residential rehab. The charity wants to find out why referral rates have fallen.

Beechwood House in Inverness is only 40 per cent full, while at Phoenix Futures in Glasgow half the beds are occupied.

It comes as one expert has warned that residential rehab –- one of the Scottish government’s key planks in its drugs strategy – is “dying”. Rowdy Yates, head of the Scottish Addiction Studies group at Stirling University, has warned that the residential treatment option might not survive in Scotland.

He said: “The residential sector is dying, we need to know whether we want it to die – I don’t think we do.

The Royal College of General Practitioners has argued residential rehab for drug addicts is costly and methadone treatment remains very effective.

Dr Richard Watson said: “It [methadone] decreases the death rate in those who are prescribed it at least five or six fold, it decreases illegal drug use, it decreases crime.

“It might be possible to get drug free and even mentally healthy while staying in a country house somewhere, but they have to come back to, usually, the council estate where they live.”