Addictions
The Scottish Addictions executive group meets every three months for an all day meeting with a teaching and business component.
It's a place to discuss ideas and trends within the field in Scotland. If you're interested in attending, please contact our Chair, as above.
All meetings are held at the Golden Lion hotel in Stirling.
Chair: Dr Rebecca Lawrence
Vice Chair: Dr Mike Kehoe
RCPsychiS Office Contact: Susan Richardson
Addictions Conference 2021
The Addictions Faculty of the RCPsych in Scotland held its annual conference online via Zoom on Friday 5th March 2021. A successful and thought provoking conference was attended by over 60 delegates from all over the UK including Members of all grades as well as a few Non-Members too! Thank you to all who joined us on the day. Those who registered/attended the conference, may view the recording (valid for two months) by requesting the link from Susan Richardson.
The presentation slides from the event are provided as below for information.
MDMA-Assisted Psychotherapy for Alcohol Use Disorder - Ben Sessa, Consultant Psychiatrist in Addictions and Child & Adolescent; Psychedelic Therapist and researcher, Bristol/Imperial University; CMO at Awakn Life Sciences
Research Evidence, Mechanisms & Education for Psychedelic-Assisted Addiction Treatments - James Hawkins, Medical Psychotherapist at Good Medicine, Edinburgh and the Psychedelic Healthcare Professionals Network.
RADAR - Rapid Access to (alcohol) Detoxification: Acute hospital Referrals - Chris Daly, Consultant Addictions Psychiatrist & Deputy Medical Director, Greater Manchester Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust
What to expect from the new UK Alcohol Guidelines - Julia Lewis, Consultant Addiction Psychiatrist, Visiting Professor, University of South Wales & Clinical Lead, Gwent Specialist Substance Misuse Service.
Resources
Opioids Aware: A resource for patients and healthcare professionals to support prescribing of opioid medicines for pain
A new opioid prescribing resource has been launched by the Faculty of Pain Medicine, Royal College of Anaesthestists; funded by Public Health England.
Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs - Recovery Committee Report
How can opioid substitution therapy (and drug treatment and recovery systems) be optimised to maximise recovery outcomes for service users?
Supporting documents
- Crawford M J et al. Selecting outcome measures in mental health: the views of service users. Journal of Mental Health, Aug 2011; 20(4): 336–346
- Mental Health Outcomes Compendium - National Institute for Mental Health in England
- Editorial. Routine outcome assessment in mental health services. Psychological Medicine, 2002, 32, 1339-1343
- Dr Peter Trigwell et al. Framework for Routine Outcome Measurement in Liaison Psychiatry. Faculty Report
Smoking
- Ash Scotland briefing on Smoking, alcohol and opioid dependence
- For methadone maintenance, ‘Discussion’ from Nahvi et al. Addiction Science & Clinical Practice, 2014,9:9. (PDF)‘Multiple studies suggest that smoking cessation medication adherence is an important determinant of cessation success, including among methadone-maintained smoker. In a retrospective cohort study in which methadone maintenance patients were prescribed varenicline during routine clinical care, varenicline treatment duration was significantly associated with smoking cessation. In two large smoking cessation trials among methadone maintenance patients, adherence to nicotine patch treatment was also shown to be associated with improved smoking cessation outcomes. Methadone-maintained smokers had fewer cigarettes per day and a 7.1x increased odds of abstinence on days in which they used patches compared to days they did not.’
- Overview of Alcohol and Tobacco from America’s National Institute for Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism:
- Cookson C et al. Smoking and its treatment in addiction services: Clients’ and staff behaviour and attitudes.
- BMC Health Services Research 2014, 14:304. ‘A large unmet clinical need is evident with a widespread failure to deliver smoking cessation interventions to an extraordinarily high prevalence population of smokers in addiction services. This is despite the majority of smokers reporting motivation to quit. Staff smoking and attitudes may be a contributory factor in these findings.’