Residential Rehabilitation Forum September 2018

On Monday 24 September 2018, NADA and the NSW Ministry of Health facilitated a forum to consult with NSW based non-government residential rehabilitation providers on three areas of current and future work priorities. The forum was well attended, with representatives from over half of NSW Health funded residential rehabilitation present. The purpose of this communique is to summarise discussions from the three sessions and to outline next steps.

Pathways to Residential Rehabilitation Scoping Project

Purpose of the session

Identify facilitators and barriers to clients on their pathway to residential rehabilitation as part of the Ministry of Health's Pathways to Residential Rehabilitation Scoping Project.

Summary of discussions

• Participants identified and discussed the challenges clients face with accessing information, contacting residential rehabilitation services, being assessed and/or referred and maintaining engagement prior to admission.
• Participants also discussed potential strategies that services could implement to improve clients' experience on the pathway to residential rehabilitation.

Next steps

The Ministry will incorporate findings from the forum and will share the overall findings from the scoping project with NADA and residential rehabilitation providers.

Residential rehabilitation service-specific performance indicator development

Purpose of the session

Identify and discuss aspects of residential rehabilitation treatment services that could be measured and reported on as service-specific performance indicators.

Summary of discussions

• Feedback from participants was to develop additional core performance indicators that are relevant to all services, rather than service-specific performance indicators.
• Participants also recommended including a mix of process and outcome focused performance indicators, as well as some activity performance indicators, where required.

Next steps

The Ministry and NADA will continue to consult with contracted NGOs, LHDs and primary health networks to develop additional core performance indicators that are relevant to all treatment service types.

Review of the drug and alcohol treatment guidelines for residential settings

Purpose of the session

Discuss options for reviewing and updating the NSW Health Residential Rehabilitatin Treatment Guidelines

Summary of discussions

• Participants discussed how residential rehabilitation providers could benefit from new guidelines and how these would best align with other guidance materials, including the AOD NGO Treatment Specifications.
• also discussed the importance of aligning any new guidance material with other work across the sector, including the core processes of care.

Next steps

NADA and the Ministry will continue to consult with residential rehabilitation providers to understand what type of guidance material the sector needs to guide practice.

Contact

The NGO Statewide AOD Working Group with representatives from contracted NGOs, LHDs, primary health networks, NADA and the Ministry continues to provide a forum to work through contracting improvements.

Contact us for further information about the Group or about improving contractual arrangement activities.

• Tanya Merinda, Ministry of Health - Tanya.Merinda@health.nsw.gov.au
• Robert Stirling, NADA - Robert@nada.org.au
• Clinical Safety and Quality team, Ministry of Health - MOH-AODSafetyQuality@health.nsw.gov.au