MANDATING DRUG AND ALCOHOL TREATMENT PROVISION

That this House agrees with the BMA, Faculty of Public Health, Health Foundation, Health & SocialCare Select Committee, King's Fund, LGA, Royal Society for Public Health and many others that have warned that public health cuts are a false economy, heaping added pressure upon an overstretched NHS and jeopardising future health outcomes; recognises that analysis shows that for every £1 invested in public health, £14 is returned to the health and social care economy; acknowledges that drug and alcohol treatment services are acutely affected by continued austerity at a time of record drug and alcohol deaths; believes these to be essential services which warrant mandatory provision status; notes that this would not require primary legislation to introduce; further notes that this has already been achieved to safeguard sexual health service provision; and calls upon the Government to consider a similar regulation to add a duty to deliver drug and alcohol treatment services.