Mark Knight
I’ve worked in the drugs field for over twenty-five years. Spending about half of that in research and the other in commissioning. As my job title suggests, my role at GMCA is primarily a strategic one, working with commissioners and partners across health and justice, trying to ensure we provide the best services we can, in what are often challenging circumstances. I’m particularly proud of the drugs intelligence system we have built up over the years and will hopefully get to talk about that.
Session
The Greater Manchester Combined Authority commissions a comprehensive GM Drugs Intelligence System. It is recognised as the most comprehensive system in the country and comprises of three elements:
The GM Drug and Alcohol Related Deaths Surveillance System is coordinated by Liverpool John Moores University’s Public Health Institute (PHI). On a quarterly basis, PHI chair panels for each of our 10 GM localities. They employ treatment records and coroners reports to provide accounts of the circumstances in which drug and ‘alcohol toxicity’ related deaths have occurred and confidentially shares the lessons from these across public services with the aim of reducing the likelihood of similar such deaths occurring in the future.
The GM Drugs Early Warning System (GM EWS) was piloted locally before being employed to develop national guidelines for similar Local Drug Information Systems. Drug related incidents are reviewed by a multidisciplinary GM Drug Alert Panel who support partner organisations in providing clear information for professionals and drug users. The GM EWS works in tandem with MANDRAKE (MANchester Drug Analysis and Knowledge Exchange), a joint Greater Manchester Police (GMP) and Manchester Metropolitan University (MMU) initiative that enables drugs to be tested rapidly when incidents occur.
GM TRENDS (Greater Manchester: Testing and Research on Emergent and New DrugS) is a multi-method annual study, also delivered by MMU, which aims to provide up-to-date drugs intelligence to professionals across GM. It gathers information from a variety of sources on the latest drug market trends, including user reports on the current quality and availability of drugs and stakeholder concerns related to drug harms. GM-TRENDS also reports on the routine analysis of seized non-evidential drug samples transported by GMP for testing by MANDRAKE.
The paper will provide a commissioner’s perspective and argue for the development of this type of local response that has the active involvement of stakeholders (e.g. health practitioners, criminal justice agencies, local government and public health). The utility of this recommended model will also be evidenced through a series of case studies that exemplify the beneficial outcomes of establishing a localised and relatively low-cost partnership response.