Integrating Drug-Related Monitoring Systems—An Intelligence Led Approach

Abstract

The Centre for Public Health at Liverpool John Moores University houses a number of distinct, but related, systems that collate attributable monitoring data from drug treatment, criminal justice, and harm reduction services in the North West of England. Briefly, the National Drug Treatment Monitoring System collates data from higher level structured drug treatment services (e.g., substitute prescribing, psychological interventions, and abstinence-based programs), while the Drug Interventions Programme collects data on criminal justice interventions both within the community and prisons, which aim to divert offenders into treatment. Alcohol treatment services for the region are monitored through the Alcohol Treatment Monitoring System. These systems provide regular reports to key stakeholders as well as themed reports to respond to specific public health and commissioning needs. These data are also used to demonstrate client crossover and pathways between services and regional trends in substance use. Finally, the data facilitate investigations into diverse drug-related issues such as injecting behavior, drug-related deaths, modeling to determine hidden drug using populations, epidemiological investigations, changing drug treatment demands, and monitoring the impact of government policy. In combination, these monitoring systems contain information relating to over 100,000 individuals in the North West of England over a 12-year period.