Treatment of Addiction

Established: April 2006

Convenor (Chair): Professor Colin Drummond, Professor of Addition Psychiatry, St George’s, University of London. (e-mail: colin.drummond@sghms.ac.uk)

Members:
TARG includes key academics involved in clinical addiction research in the UK. It is a multidisciplinary group comprising 12 clinical academic psychiatrists, 3 psychologists, and an epidemiologist, health economist, anthropologist, psychopharmacologist from 9 academic institutions. The academic psychiatrists are also members of SCAN (Specialist Clinical Addiction Network), which provides access to all NHS addiction psychiatrists, services and multidisciplinary teams in the UK, opening the potential for wide participation within the network. The group has good existing links through SCAN to service user networks.

Members:
Prof. Mohammed Abou-Saleh St. George's, University of London P
Dr. Roger Bloor University of Keele P
Dr. Alex Copello University of Birmingham CP
Prof. Ilana Crome# University of Keele P
Dr. Ed Day University of Birmingham P
Prof. Colin Drummond* St. George's, University of London P Convenere
Prof. Theodora Duka University of Sussex P
Dr. Martin Frischer University of Keele E
Dr. Eilish Gilvarry University of Newcastle P
Prof. Christine Godfrey University of York HE
Dr. Michael Gossop Institute of Psychiatry, KCL PL
Dr Eileen Kaner University of Newcastle A
Dr. Anne Lingford-Hughes University of Bristol P
Prof. Hilary Little St. George's, University of London PY
Dr. Judy Myles# St. George's, University of London P
Prof. David Nutt University of Bristol P
Dr Duncan Raistrick University of Leeds P
Prof. David Stephens University of Sussex PL
Prof. John Strang Institute of Psychiatry, KCL P

P – psychiatry
CP- clinical psychology
PL- psychology
E- epidemiology
HE- health economics
A- anthropology
PY- psychopharmacology

*Convener
#Deputy conveners

Service user and carer input: SCAN has good existing links with service users and carers including representation from these groups within the SCAN Steering Group and Clinical Consensus Groups to ensure each project meets the needs of the communities they are intended to serve. TARG will utilise existing links with the Alliance (formerly Methadone Alliance), Alcohol Concern, Drugscope, and SCAN who have established user and carer involvement to recruit representatives to serve on TARG.

Remit and Aims:
Drug misuse is at its highest level ever, and alcohol misuse at the highest point in 50 years in the UK. There are over 8 million adults misusing alcohol and alcohol is the third leading cause of ill health in the UK, after tobacco and heart disease. It is estimated that alcohol misuse costs the economy £20bn, and drug misuse £12bn, per annum.

Alcohol and drug misuse are key government priorities with a 10-year national drug misuse strategy and an Alcohol Harm Reduction Strategy for England has. In both cases effective evidence based treatment is a key priority.

The Treatment Addiction Research Group (TARG) will focus on the treatment of addiction, including addiction to legal drugs (e.g. alcohol and benzodiazepines) and illicit drugs (e.g. opiates, stimulants, hallucinogens). Participating subjects can be recruited from NHS, criminal justice or social care settings as appropriate.

Aims of the TARG:
• To develop a national network of multidisciplinary research collaboration in the addiction field and to foster research collaboration between academics, clinicians and service users.
• To enhance the national infrastructure to host addiction research.
• To support the implementation of addiction research of the highest quality and widest generalisability by developing a national network of collaborating academic and clinical units.
• To organise and deliver large-scale research projects to maximise generalisability of findings.
• To foster special interest groups in important sub-specialities within addiction research.

Current Status & Future Plans:
The main research thrust will be to develop and evaluate novel, innovative and effective treatment approaches for a range of addictions, including psychosocial and pharmacological interventions. Research methodologies will be primarily multicentre randomised controlled trials, but will include qualitative, clinical experimental, health economic and other health service research methodologies as needed. Where appropriate TARG will support pharmaceutical industry funded clinical research.

6 month update:
Future opportunities for TARG and Specialist Clinical Addiction Network (SCAN) to work together are:
·   Assertive community treatment in severely alcohol-dependent patients
·   Cocaine dependence treatment with modafinil and behaviour therapy in patients receiving methadone maintenance

A number of other projects were discussed, for example pregnancy and substance misuse, novel pharmacological agents, and nurse prescribing.

In due course the group plans to survey SCAN members’ interests, treatment facilities and resources, develop a website, provide information on funding opportunities, and disseminate useful information to the SCAN membership.

February 2007