Clause 15 - Disclosure of information about assessments
Drugs Bill
11:00 am
Mr John Mann (Bassetlaw, Labour)
I always get a little nervous when I hear the term ''multi-agency''. In my experience it often means ''multi-excuse''—everyone is responsible, so no one takes responsibility, which was certainly the situation in Bassetlaw until two years ago.
I want to ask a question in relation to a constituent of mine, whom I shall refer to as Ms X. She does not live in the Bassetlaw side of my constituency, where the GPs do treatment, but lives in the Mansfield side. Ms X receives a script via a drugs worker but gets anti-depressants quite separately, from her GP. Having checked the records, I know that most drug addicts in my area are registered with a GP but have bad attendance records while they are addicts. Indeed, during those periods they rarely visit their GPs or dentists at all, even though they are registered. Ms X is registered and has to receive anti-depressants from her GP.
Currently, if Ms X were arrested, as she might have been on many occasions, assessed post-arrest and put into treatment, her GP would not be entitled to receive information of that assessment. If the clause were considered further in the light of our discussions, we would have a golden opportunity to overcome the data protection issues that stop the police from providing vital information to GPs.
Nottinghamshire is, I think, the only place in the country with drug testing on arrest in all custody suites. It is to Nottinghamshire police's credit that they have attracted the funding for the system and had the wherewithal to put it in place. The police say that testing on arrest is incredibly valuable, and having looked at the detailed results, I agree with them. For the GP or indeed anyone else involved in the treatment, that information would also be incredibly valuable, as they would know whether an individual in their health custody had tested positive for drugs in an assessment on arrest or had admitted to the use of illegal and health-harming drugs.
In addition, if there are significant programmes using methadone or buprenorphine, the issue of diversion can be addressed. Someone writing a prescription for buprenorphine or methadone would want to know, for two reasons, whether their patient was selling it illicitly. First, that would obviously be an illegal sale, but secondly, there would be ramifications for the health of the individual, because someone who sells on is not using their dosage or are taking the wrong dosage. In making out a prescription precision is vital; methadone is probably the most obvious example, but the same would be true of buprenorphine. Similarly, if a patient were receiving what should be prescription drugs illicitly, that information would be useful for continuing health assessment.
At the moment, it is not possible to work in that way. The information is in the custody suite at Worksop and other police stations. Under the arrangement in question, a significant new pool of information about people's health would be available. Nottinghamshire police certainly feel that they do not have power to provide the information to the health service, although the health service could do with it for the purpose of effective treatment.
It seems from Home Office research that has never been questioned that the majority of class A drug addicts are liable to involvement in acquisitive crimes with an impact on the rest of the community, as well as in buying illicitly. Therefore, even if it benefits only a small minority, in relation to health issues connected to diversion or failure of substitution treatment admitted in assessment—in other words if someone is on a programme but has been arrested and found to be in possession of heroin or crack or to have it in the bloodstream—the information should be given to the health service.
In relation to the follow-up assessment and what happens after it, the point is not an esoteric one; it is vital, because there are those who argue that buprenorphine and methadone are bad forms of treatment, because of diversion. Some of those who use that argument are, as I know from my experience, involved in the assessment process and, as I understand it, will continue to be involved. Without accurate data on diversion they are making a guess, but in Nottinghamshire accurate information about those who have gone through the custody suite is available, although not to the health practitioners to whom it should be available.
I should be interested to know whether the Minister feels, in relation to disclosure of information, whether what I suggest would be permissible under the law anyway, or if not whether the creation of such a power of disclosure to a third party—an appropriate competent health professional—would be worthy of consideration later in the progress of the Bill.