Wirral Council is to be given an extra £6.8 million to improve drug and alcohol addiction treatment and recovery over the next two years.
Like other councils, Wirral is responsible for commissioning drug and alcohol treatment and recovery services as part of their public health responsibilities.
This extra cash means more people will benefit from residential rehabilitation or inpatient detoxification, while improvements to the recovery services will sustain them outside of treatment - helping to reduce relapse rates.
The cash is part of the national drug strategy, published in December 2021, which revealed that illegal drugs are involved in half of all homicides, and nearly half of all burglaries and robberies.
To make sure there is value for money for the taxpayer, Wirral Council and its partners will also be asked by the Department of Health & Social Care to provide plans to improve their treatment and recovery systems.
Councillor Mary Jordan (Conservative, Clatterbridge) said: “The extra cash announced this week will enable us to get more people to break their addictions, removing them from a permanent cycle of crime and social problems, and to place more prison leavers into treatment and recovery services to reduce the risks of reoffending.”
Tim Young, Chief Executive of The Alcohol and Drug Service, added: “We welcome today’s announcement as, without funding, the ambitions set out in the national drug strategy would remain just words on a page.
“So, while there are no quick or easy fixes for systemic problems such as substance misuse, this presents an opportunity to turn those ambitions into reality, and provide hope for individuals, families and communities.”
The cash comes alongside work to clamp down on the criminal gangs profiting from the trade in illegal drugs, backed by £300 million investment to dismantle over 2,000 county lines, make thousands more arrests and protect those being exploited.
For details of services from the NHS: