Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps her Department is taking to help local authorities tackle substance misuse.

As part of the Government’s 10-year drug strategy, local authorities are receiving £532 million of additional investment through to 2024/25 to improve drug and alcohol treatment and recovery services. This funding is in addition to the Public Health Grant.

The Department is actively supporting local authorities to develop and implement their local plans for drug and alcohol treatment and are monitoring outcomes through the national outcomes framework. This support includes the Commissioning Quality Standard, published in August 2022, which provides guidance for commissioning effective alcohol and drug treatment and recovery services. The Department also published guidance on Recovery support services and lived experience initiatives to support regions to develop and improve recovery-orientated systems of care, to help people to achieve and sustain recovery. The guidance is available at the following link:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/recovery-support-services-and-lived-experience-initiatives