COV - Psychology Support for Drug & Alcohol Treatment Services

The Contract will deliver psychology support for the benefit of people misusing substances and aid their recovery, including:

• Professional support to substance misuse services, including consultation, training and professional supervision of staff to support the delivery of effective psychology interventions and navigate the mental health system
• Direct clinical interventions with service users of substance misuse services, including assessment and formulation for high-risk individuals and co-delivery of psychological interventions

This is a new contract and will be developed over the life of the provision. The Provider will support the development of the service, including the development of an evidence-based framework to baseline and monitor outcomes.

Coventry City Council commissions an adult drug and alcohol treatment service in line with current clinical standards. The launch of the new national drug strategy "From Harm to Hope" has introduced a number of new elements of provision; one of these elements of provision which is strongly recommended within treatment systems is an uplift in the level of psychological-informed services to help improve the quality of provision and support more people into recovery. Currently, there is no psychology input commissioned by the City Council within drug and alcohol treatment provision.

A number of psychology models of treatment are available including:

• Employment of local psychologists and therapies to deliver individual counselling
• Local psychology input to help co-deliver psychologically-led groupwork activity with drug and alcohol treatment services

Psychology input to advice and support existing staff to deliver effective psychologically informed treatments - this can be through (i) supervision and consultation with staff and (ii) support at multi disciplinary team (MDT) meetings, particularly in relation to more complex cases

Employment of local psychologists and other psychology assistants, etc, to deliver individual counselling interventions is costly and is likely to encounter recruitment challenges with a limited number of addiction specialist psychologists available in the country. Therefore, it is recommended that psychology input into adult treatment services via consultation, supervision, MDT support and a limited capacity of co-delivered provision is considered the lower cost, realistic alternative. This model will help avoid duplication of provision offered via secondary mental health services.

The addition of psychology into the local treatment model will improve the quality of interventions, lead to improved engagement and connectivity with local secondary mental health services in line with the ambitions of the nation drug strategy and One Coventry plans to support the most vulnerable.

The Council will be receiving an uplift in a ringfenced grant from central government to support the delivery of national drug strategy ambitions (Supplementary Substance Misuse Treatment and Recovery Grant - SSMTRG) - this procurement will utilise this ring-fenced grant.