By Richard Johnstone | 31 August 2011
A former government drugs czar is calling for a new focus on treating alcohol addiction in prisons after finding that as many as one in six prisoners in the UK may be alcoholics.
The Rehabilitation for Addicted Prisoners Trust has estimated the extent of the alcohol problems in jails from analysing their work with inmates at 15 institutions.
Around half of all prisoners report a drug or alcohol dependency in prison, and the survey of cases found that, of these, over a third are severely dependent on alcohol.
The survey comes as primary care trusts across England conclude their assessments of the health needs of prisoners. These are to be completed today, following the transfer of responsibility for the commissioning of substance misuse services for offenders in England from the Ministry of Justice to the Department of Health in April this year.
Rapt chief executive Mike Trace told Public Finance that the number of alcohol‑dependent prisoners was ‘much higher than thought’.
In 2011/12, the total budget for prison substance misuse services was more than £108m. But Trace, the government’s deputy anti-drug co-ordinator from 1997 until 2001, said that ‘there is such a big gap between need and provision [on alcohol] as all the money has been spent on illegal drugs’.
There are currently only two intensive treatment programmes for alcoholic prisoners in the entire prison systems, both of which are run by Rapt.
Trace called for PCTs to take the ‘huge opportunity’ of tackling alcohol‑fuelled crime by focusing on the issue when they start to commission prisoner health services from next April, when current treatment contracts, held over from the MOJ, end.
He told PF that PCTs need to ensure that they know ‘what the level of need is’.
Trace said: ‘Alcohol addiction is a huge unmet need in prisons. We know that untreated alcohol problems lead to massive health and social costs, but we also know that well‑structured programmes can use the opportunity provided by a period of imprisonment to significantly reduce these problems.
‘PCTs now have a huge opportunity, and a big responsibility, to really help drive down the costs of alcohol fuelled crime, and the alcohol related burden on the NHS and social services.’
Responding to the figures, the director of the NHS Confederation's Primary Care Trust Network David Stout said: ‘Primary care trusts should plan access to all services based on the needs of their local population and on the basis of evidence of clinical and cost effectiveness.
‘Primary care trusts are responsible for commissioning of specialist services such as addiction rehabilitation for prisoners, alongside with the full range of health services for people in their local patch. PCTs rightly take their responsibilities for specialist services very seriously, but will always have to make difficult judgements about relative priorities.’
