(PDF p.68) Improving health outcomes for the most vulnerable in society

Addiction services

Implementation of Reducing Harm, Supporting Recovery, A health-led response to drug and alcohol use in Ireland, 2017-2025 was further progressed:

- Training was delivered to GPs and pharmacists in the community to facilitate the roll-out of suboxone as an alternate opioid substitution treatment to methadone. An additional 95 GPs were trained to prescribe suboxone with 220 patients in receipt of suboxone by end of the year.

- Naloxone training and prescribing continued during the year to address the issue of opioid overdose. Naloxone was administered in overdose situations on 190 separate occasions. On international overdose awareness day, nasal naloxone was introduced in Ireland and by year end 775 nasal preparations were distributed.

- Screening and brief intervention training for alcohol and substance misuse (SAOR) training was delivered to 1,469 people.

- The number of monthly site visits to www.drugs.ie peaked in November, with the site receiving 321,946 hits and 23,422 people completing the on-line self-assessment and brief intervention.

- Work progressed in establishing a supervised injecting facility in the Dublin city centre area. A contract was entered into for the pilot phase of its development. The medically supervised initiative seeks to bring vulnerable people to a place of safety which is clean and supervised, enabling access to a harm reduction service that will contribute towards improving their health and to reducing drug related deaths. The planning process is underway with Dublin County Council.

See PDF p.130 for Key Performance Indicators

Opioid Substitution

No. of clients in receipt of opioid substitution treatment (outside prisons)

Average waiting time from referral to assessment for opioid substitution treatment

Average waiting time from opioid substitution assessment to exit from waiting list or treatment commenced

Needle Exchange

No. of unique individuals attending pharmacy needle exchange

Substance Misuse

No. and % of substance misusers (over 18 years) for whom treatment has commenced within one calendar month following assessment

No. and % of substance misusers (under 18 years) for whom treatment has commenced within one week following assessment

PDF P.60 & P.61

Alcohol Programme

- Based on findings from the first Irish survey on alcohol harm to others (AH20), the HSE published a report The Untold Story: Harms experienced in the Irish population due to others drinking that quantifies some of alcohol’s harm to others in Ireland. Some key survey findings can be seen on page 18 of this report.

- Alcohol and Drugs: A Parent’s Guide was launched and is filled with information and practical advice for parents on how to talk to their teenagers about alcohol and other drugs.

- In December, the Public Health (Alcohol) Act was signed into law. This was a significant milestone for the www.askaboutalcohol.ie campaign and marked the achievement of one of the core objectives of the campaign.

Tobacco Free Ireland

- The State of Tobacco Control in Ireland, 2018 was launched by the Tobacco Free Ireland Programme. It describes the scope and impact of tobacco control activities undertaken by the HSE over the past number of years which have contributed to the reduction in the number of people smoking in Ireland today. Two secondary analysis reports Adult Smoking in Ireland and Youth Smoking in Ireland were also launched and findings from these reports can be seen on page 19 of this Annual Report.

- In collaboration with Tobacco Free Ireland partners, a conference was held to mark World No Tobacco Day with the aim of supporting communities to take action to achieve the Tobacco Free Ireland 2025 goal of less than 5% smoking prevalence in Ireland. Research published at the conference indicated that those most vulnerable in our communities are most at risk of death and long-term smokingrelated illnesses.

- Implementation of the national tobacco free campus policy progressed across all CHO and Hospital Group sites.

- QuitManager is a comprehensive smoking cessation patient management system and will facilitate electronic referral to the HSE’s QUIT service and detailed feedback reporting. Following input from key stakeholders, including extensive user acceptance testing and training of a group of ‘super users’, the QuitManager system was adapted and designed to meet the needs of smoking cessation services and QUITline. In November, QuitManager went live for the national QUITline and in a number of community and hospital services with further roll-out due in 2019.