PIONEERING legal injection rooms for heroin users would save the health service millions of pounds by reducing pressure on A&E and slashing HIV transmission rates.
The experts behind the controversial scheme say the massive potential cost of a recent HIV epidemic among intravenous drug users, and other costs such as attendance at accident and emergency service might be avoided if the safer drug consumption facility is established in Glasgow.
An estimated 500 people are believed to use the drug in public places in the city centre on a regular basis. A recent outbreak of HIV, focused on this group, has seen 78 new cases diagnosed since 2015, and the paper estimates the lifetime cost of treating those people at up to £28.08 million.
Meanwhile research on 350 city centre drug users estimated that over two years they had between them cost £1.7m in visits to A&E alone.
A report on the pilot planned by Glasgow Health and Social care Partnership says this means substantial financial gains could be achieved using a safer consumption facility - which will enable users to bring heroin they have purchased on the street and inject or smoke it under medical supervision. A selected group will instead be offered heroin assisted treatment (Hat), where doctors prescribe medical heroin for those for whom other treatments have failed.
In a paper to be presented to the next meeting of Glasgow's Integration Joint Board, chief social work officer Susanne Millar argues there are four main arguments in favour of the proposed centre. These are improving the health of addicts by reducing associated infections and overdoses, helping users get other support and treatment, making the city centre safer and more pleasant and saving unnecessary health and care spending.
Ms Millar said the figures about the economic impact of public injecting suggested an injection room could make a substantial saving to social servies. She added: "The health and social impact on those involved in public injecting leads directly to significant costs for support services.
"Our proposals to transform how we support those who publicly inject drugs would help to address a wide range of issues and so relieve considerable pressure on services elsewhere in the system
"The evidence clearly shows the potential for these proposals to create long term savings and so the economics of this issue are also compelling."
The draft business case does not say how much the pilot will cost, and this and other details including where it will be situated have now been postponed until a further IJB meeting in June.
David Liddell, director of Scottish Drugs Forum, said the financial case for drug injecting rooms was sound: "These are real costs and we know the HIV outbreak in Glasgow is still not effectively under control. The best way to do that and engage with those affected is to have people injecting gin a safer environment where they are not putting themselves at specific risk. The bottom line is this is a substantial group with significant health issues which will be costly if they are not dealt with - to the individuals themselves but potentially more widely as well."
Andrew Horne, director of drug and alcohol charity Addaction said he also supported the proposal. "Having injecting rooms, particularly for that group of complex street drug users in the city centre, would be effective and will see broad health benefits," he said.
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