Staff from the Community Addiction Recovery Service (CAReS) team, based in Hamilton, have received a Big Shout Out for their multidisciplinary approach to caring for those experiencing problems with opiate or alcohol misuse.
The team provide substitute prescribing as well as facilitating detoxes within the community, social work support and mental health advice.
Jill Taylor, staff nurse with the CAReS team, said: The patients that come to our service are people that are struggling with alcohol or substance use.
“We offer substitute prescribing. That may be methadone, buprenorphine, and we also do a bividal injection.
“We also have people who have a problem with alcohol, so we help to support them in reducing and stopping their alcohol intake. This includes getting people detoxes in the community.
“And we work with addiction GPs, the psychiatry teams, social work colleagues and substance misuse workers as well.
“We also offer overdose awareness training and distribution of Naloxone to every patient accessing the service, as well as their loved ones. This is to minimise the risk of overdose and save lives.”
The team work closely with patients, understanding that the recovery journey has to be the patient’s own decision.
Alex, staff nurse, said: “It’s not everybody wants to be sober or are ready to be sober. But, they might want some advice on how to reduce their drug or alcohol intake or even how to do it a wee bit safer as well.
“We encourage these patients to stop and give them harm reduction advice and how to do things safer.
“This is their own journey, it’s the patient’s choice. If someone is wanting support, we are here, no matter what that support may look like.”
The team work using a trauma informed model to help provide mental health support to their patients and to understand the root cause of their addiction.
Ashley McGregor, staff nurse, said: “Patients may have a lot of underlying trauma which they need supported with. So our main aim is not just to help people stop or reduce their drug intake or their alcohol intake, it’s to figure out why they’re going down that route in the first place. Maybe do they need input from our psychology team or psychiatry or just a wee bit of help to figure out why they’re turning to these coping mechanisms as opposed to different ones.”
Jill said: “We are really fortunate in this role that we get put forward for a lot training to be able to give people psychological input. A lot of the times it means that we don’t need to refer on psychology colleagues. We can actually do a lot of the work one-to-one in our clinic as well.”
Ashley added: “We do get a lot of patients coming in who can find it difficult to regulate their own emotions, especially if they’ve been through a lot of kind of childhood trauma or sexual or domestic abuse. So it’s good that we are able to be trained on that and that we can address some of the issues here. If we do need to put them on to kind of psychological therapies, we can refer them on.”
The team have a close bond and support each other daily. Speaking of this Ashley said: “Our team are just fantastic. We help each other out, so if somebody’s struggling or you’re unsure about something, we can just ask another member of the team and everybody’s willing to help you. Chip in, can offer support. Even our manager as well. He’s fantastic.”
Alex said: “I was actually here as a student before I qualified, and that was one thing that stood out, is just how lovely, supportive team it was. And that kind of made me want to come here and get a job, which luckily I did.”
Jill added: “We’re all from really different backgrounds in our training, which I think really, really helps. I think we are a group of caring and empathetic individuals, which is why we do what we do so well.”
Kirsty Barnes, Service Manager for Community Addiction Recovery Services (CAReS), said: “The Community Addiction Recovery Service (CAReS) is a community-based integrated alcohol and drug treatment service, designed to support individuals with their recovery from alcohol or drug dependency problems. The service is made up of Social Workers, Nurses, Substance Misuse Workers, Occupational Therapists, Peer Support Workers, Addiction Psychologists, Addiction Psychiatrists and Community Prescribers.
“We have recently been embarking on a period of change working hard to implement the Scottish Government Medication Assisted Treatment (MAT) standards. There are 10 standards that aim to make access to treatment for opiate addiction more accessible by providing medication on the same day that people ask for help, and working with our Alcohol and Drug Partnership colleagues and commissioned services to provide support to people not currently engaging with services.
“We aim to reduce stigma by providing choice around treatments and support individuals to stay in treatment for as long as they want. CAReS staff are accessing trauma training to ensure the care provided is psychologically informed and that people with co-occurring mental health difficulties can access care and treatment in the right place and at the right time.
“These standards have given us a governance framework which will ensure that people accessing our service receive evidence based care and treatment.”
The Big Shout Out praises NHS Lanarkshire teams for taking an innovative, creative, and patient-centered approach to working, and recognizes the unique contribution staff make to overcoming the challenges faced across the entire healthcare system.
