North Yorkshire Illicit Drugs Needs Assessment  

Task 

The impact of illicit drug use is far reaching, affecting the life outcomes of individuals, their family members, and wider communities. There are strong links between substance use and health inequalities, poverty, unemployment, exposure to criminal activity, and modern slavery. The main policy context for efforts aimed at tackling drugs is the Government’s 10-year drug strategy ‘From Harm to Hope’, published in December 2021, that sets out three key objectives: 

  • Breaking Drug Supply Chains  

  • Delivering World-Class Treatment and Recovery System  

  • Achieving a Generational Shift in Demand for Drugs 

TONIC was commissioned to conduct a rapid illicit drugs needs assessment to inform the development of a local substance use strategy for North Yorkshire. The purpose of this needs assessment was to assess and describe existent needs and highlight needs that cannot currently be described and reported on, and to provide a series of recommendations.  

Our Approach 

To complete this needs assessment, TONIC partnered with Russell Webster, and utilised a mixed methods approach. A short review was conducted to summarise national research, policies, and strategies to provide insight into what individuals are at risk and why. Local quantitative data that was either publicly available or shared by North Yorkshire County Council was analysed by TONIC researchers. As well as this, several insight interviews were conducted to provide context for the data analysis with key providers of services.   

Outcome 

Following the findings from the needs assessment, TONIC produced a comprehensive report in which key recommendations and considerations were highlighted and categorised into five core themes. These included, but were not limited to: 

Breaking Drug Supply Chains 

  • North Yorkshire Police continues to make the disruption of County Lines a priority area. 

  • Consideration is given to further distribution of naloxone kits by police custody staff to mitigate the risk of drug-related deaths.  

  • Further investigation into what types of drugs are being sold online and how they are marketed.  

Adult Drug Treatment 

  • The effective Criminal Justice pathway is maintained.  

  • Expanding the current approach designed to engage people with complex needs into treatment. 

  • Consideration given to adding Buvidal to the local adult alcohol and drug recovery service formulary.  

Young People’s Treatment 

  • Attention should be paid to improve the recording of drug and alcohol issues among young people attending other services.  

  • Analysis of hospital admissions for drug poisonings to gain a greater understanding of this at-risk cohort of young people.  

Families and Carers 

  • Provision of dedicated resourcing to the service for the families and carers of people with substance misuse problems.  

Drug Prevention 

  • Commissioning targeted prevention work aimed at vulnerable groups. 

  • Maintain and strengthen support for PSHE and public health campaigns as well as providing easy access to up-to-date evidence-based drug prevention and education information.