This report form the UK aims to help commissioners, providers, regulators, policy makers, doctors and those seeking recovery from drug or alcohol use to ensure that all doctors working with people using drugs and alcohol have the right level of competency for the roles and responsibilities they undertake.

Chapter 1 describes the recovery context, the range of doctors working with drug and alcohol users, and the regulatory requirements regarding their roles and competencies.
Chapter 2 delineates the main distinctive roles and responsibilities carried out by doctors working with drug and alcohol users, and outlines their importance in delivering high-quality, effective care and support.
Chapter 3 defines three levels of competency for doctors in this field – specialist, intermediate and generalist – based on these roles and responsibilities. It also gives examples of the background and training of the kinds of doctors usually found working at each of these levels of competency in practice.
Chapter 4 provides further information on the training, qualifications and supervision arrangements currently available for doctors in this field. It sets out the Working Group’s recommendations for the training, qualifications and supervision requirements that should be expected of doctors at each level of competency. The Working Group expects that following these recommendations should normally be sufficient to ensure that regulatory requirements are met.
Chapter 5 uses the roles, responsibilities and competencies of doctors in this field to propose a number of broad principles for commissioning drug and alcohol services.