A National Evaluation of ‘The National Drug Rehabilitation Framework’

The National Drug Rehabilitation Framework is a set of best practice guidelines for service providers within the Addiction Services.  The framework was developed by National Drug Rehabilitation Implementation Committee, which is made up of a panel of experts across a range addiction services from statutory, voluntary and community sectors. This document was created following recommendations from the ‘Report of the Working Group on Drugs Rehabilitation’, May 2007, as a framework to assist services to plan practically and implement a range of different approaches to provide an 'Integrated Care Pathway' for former and current drug users.

In 2010 the Department of Public Health & Primary Care were commissioned to evaluate 11 nationally representative geographical sites that had piloted the framework.  Each of the 11 sites were made up of several statutory and non-statutory agencies providing a range of addiction services.  There are two study arms in the current study, arm 1 is a quantitative arm, service users and a range of service providers (managers, key-workers, case-managers, and key informants) completed a questionnaire and arm 2 is a qualitative arm, service users and a range of service providers (managers, key-workers, case-managers, and key informants) were interviewed regarding their experience of the framework in their local area.   The final evaluation report is expected to be finalised in June 2013.