NHS APA statement: Adult substance misuse treatment statistics 2024 to 2025 report

The NHS Addictions Providers Alliance has shared a statement in response to OHID's latest national statistics on numbers of people in treatment for drug and alcohol use.

"The latest statistics on numbers of people in treatment for drug and alcohol use demonstrates some progress has been made to meet the challenge set down by Dame Carol Black in 2021 to transform the treatment and recovery system. The bottom line is that treatment is a protective factor for people who need help with their drug or alcohol use, and many lives will have been saved because the previous government took the decision to increase funding and provide strategic direction.

Turning things around has always been, and will always be, a system-wide effort involving people working and volunteering in a range of environments and organisations, the NHS, large charity providers, lived experience recovery organisations, commissioners and policy-makers. It is only by working together learning from each other and crucially, the people we support that we will continue to make progress.

And continued progress is very much needed. Because, in spite of the positive step forward indicated by these statistics, we are working in a context where far too many people remain unsupported with their needs. Clear and stable long-term funding is of course a vital ingredient, but we need many more things to happen in order to maintain the ambitions of the Dame Carol Black Review, developing a skilled and experienced workforce, an adherence to and expansion of the evidence base, less silo-ed ways of working and better links into allied sectors of support, especially mental health.

Increasing the numbers of people in treatment is a positive start, but we need to now focus on what we’re doing once people have made that life-changing decision to seek support."

Find the full report here.