Introduction
Working with Alcohol and Drug Partnerships (ADPs) and statutory homeless services, alongside the people who use them, to improve service access, reduce harm and achieve better outcomes
In 2018, 53% of deaths among people experiencing homelessness were drug-related. In the same year death rate for alcohol was 400 times for people experiencing homelessness than it was for the general population.
Scotland went on to record its highest ever drug and alcohol related death rates during 2020 with 1339 drug-related and 1190 alcohol-related deaths. Further work is needed to improve service access for all people.
Programme
Reducing Harm Improving Care (RHIC) supports ADPs and statutory homeless services to understand current service delivery models and identify key considerations for future service design and improvement. To date the programme has delivered:
- The involvement of people accessing services in quality improvement
- Coaching and workshops with service providers and people with lived and living experience to facilitate and capture learning and insights
- Recommendations for an integrated model of care
- Knowledge transfer on quality improvement methodology in healthcare to support local services and partners to identify and deliver future service improvements
- Increased capacity within local systems to drive improvements in integration between homelessness, alcohol and drug services.
Support for Alcohol and Drug Partnerships (ADPs) and statutory homeless services
We support ADPs and statutory homeless services by working with them to:
- develop an understanding of existing care pathways
- develop an understanding of the current system and its innovations from the COVID-19 pandemic
- understand the needs of people trying to access services
- increase opportunities for communities and system partners to co-design and co-produce integrated service improvements
- identify and share good practice, innovation and learning about ‘what works’ to drive Scotland-wide improvement in the design and delivery of homelessness and substance use services, and
- defining recommendations for future policy development.
Commission
Healthcare Improvement Scotland was commissioned by Scottish Government and the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities to deliver an improvement programme which engages ADPs and statutory homeless services, alongside the people who use them, to improve access, reduce harm and achieve better outcomes.
Partner Organisations
Partner organisations who have strongly supported the delivery of Reducing Harm Improving Care (RHIC) include:
Commissioned partners:
- Homeless Network Scotland
- Scottish Drugs Forum
Advisory partners:
- Scottish Families Affected by Alcohol and Drugs
- Scottish Recovery Consortium
- Simon Community Scotland
- Scottish Prison Service, and
- Policy Scotland
Evaluations and measures of success
Key outcome measures of RHIC improvement tools such as interconnected systems mapping and demand capture and analysis includes:
- 88% of target person to person lived experience feedback was achieved (53 out of 60)
- 200% of target virtual lived experience feedback was achieved (22 out of 12)
- 98% satisfaction from service staff on the effectiveness of the improvement tools used, and
- 98% confidence from service staff on using the improvement tools in future.
Equality impact assessment
To ensure everyone can benefit regardless of their characteristics or where they access care, we completed an Equality Impact Assessment. This highlights key equality issues that were considered and any actions we took in relation to them.