Exciting Developments in the UK
Alan Joyce
Methadone Alliance
November 21, 2003
There are exciting things happening in the UK that the Methadone Alliance has been involved with.
In the UK there is a type of General Practitioner (Doctor, in what you call ‘office based practice’, what we call ‘General practice’), who gain additional qualifications in a specialised area of medicine. These are called ‘GPSI’s’ or General Practitioners With A Special Interest’. One area that GP’s can gain additional qualifications in and become GPSI’s is in ‘Substance Misuse Management in General Practice’. This is the title of a course through the Royal College of General Practitioners that is part time, takes a year, and qualifies practitioners as a GPSI in drug use and dependence.
The Alliance (UK) has been working with doctors and other specialists (i.e. pharmacists, nurses, etc.) and have developed, managed and run the course over the last three to four years. Bill Nelles and this author (Alan Joyce) are members of the advisory panel and oversight body. Dr. Chris Ford is Chair and also one of the doctors who oversee and teach the course.
As a result of our efforts and the support advisory panel for the first time ever, a group of twelve user advocates, nominated by the Alliance (UK), have been invited to attend the course with scholarships. If we complete and pass the course we will have an internationally recognised clinical qualification which is the same as that gained by general practitioners who wish to have a special interest in working with drug users.
Of course we will not be able to write prescriptions as that requires a medical license but more important it will mean that user advocates can no longer be dismissed as having no ‘clinical qualifications’. Further it will prove a unique asset to the user advocates because it will enhance their long term prospects of employment and professional status and recognition in the field.
It will most certainly enhance our work as advocates.
This is a unique and unprecedented opportunity and our hope is that we will be pioneering a path that others will be able to follow. It is an exciting challenge and one I know we will meet. It was evident from the first day of the course, yesterday, that we are having a significant impact on the course and on the professionals who are also attending it with us.
Bill Nelles made a presentation that has had an impact on the group. And our very own Beryl Poole (Methadone Alliance UK) also made a decisive and hugely influential contribution to yesterdays discussion and debate. This, we later learnt, has already changed the thinking of a number of the physician’s present. The first day produced the expected debate between abstinence and maintenance. Supporting the science behind medication-assisted-treatment this author provided a lively discussion between several of the physicians. The result was a very stimulating and impassioned debate which was won by an overwhelming majority supporting the Maintenance team!! (Although the abstinent’s argument did ‘help’ our side).
It appears that the contribution made by the advocate users was highly valued and exceeded all hope and expectations by The College. Several of the physician’s present have taken us for the invaluable contribution that was made.
It is the Alliance’s hope that this experience will serve as a model and inspiration for the future.