28 June 2011

Trapped in a Revolving Door

Steve Hopkirk, Esh Solutions

This was a session about escaping from the grasp of two of the most prevalent addictions of modern society: alcohol misuse and conventional management approaches that fail.

In 2006-2007, the NHS spent around £405 million on treating alcohol misuse. The cost to the UK taxpayer as a whole is currently thought to be around £25 billion per year when all social costs are taken into account. And yet, despite these huge numbers, people frequently drop out of treatment or it is ineffective – trapping them in a revolving door of treatment.

What participants said…

“I thought the first part of the session was fantastic and a lot of the points have inspired me tremendously and will certainly lead to me trying to make improvements to our local authority… I certainly left and returned to work a happy bunny and have shared the key points with my team who are also enthused… The pace and level of info etc was spot on – many thanks to Steve. The venue and atmosphere created by the team was perfect.”

“I found the workshop session needed more ‘pre-requisite’ knowledge than I had (have only just moved into my new commissioning role so my contribution was limited).”

“I didn’t find the content quite as challenging as some previous sessions. I felt I had spent my time well, was with interesting people, and came away with some ideas and thoughts, which is my main measure.”

“The course was more geared towards management as opposed to working with people in drug treatment.”

“Needed more real life examples or a higher level of theory (or both) – I guess I just did not feel I learned anything new, though the presentation wasn’t bad, and I did like the idea of using cocktails given the context. Also, I enjoyed the networking side as I was able to catch up with former colleagues and associates, and it was good to meet the people from the third sector who were there.”