Women’s Treatment Working Group calls for strong leadership from the new Government

The Collective Voice Women’s Treatment Working Group (WTWG) brings together representatives from specialist women’s services, women with lived experience of using drug and alcohol treatment services, female leaders in the drug and alcohol treatment sector and women service leads delivering specialist community and residential drug and alcohol services.

Since our formation in 2021 we have worked together to identify and deliver improvements in women’s access to treatment. We have made significant progress including opening new services for women, supporting research into what works, identifying good practice and sharing our knowledge across the sector to deliver real improvements in service delivery.

The WTWG are dedicated and passionate about this issue. Despite improvements, we are seeing consistent evidence that drug and alcohol treatment is not improving lives for women who access support.

Drug and alcohol related deaths for women are increasing because we are working in a system that is failing women

• Women who use drugs experience gender-based violence at up to 25 times the rate experienced by women in the general public.
• Women who used substances or with mental health problems accounted for 40% of maternal deaths that occurred within a year after pregnancy in 2015-2020.
• In 2022, drug-related mortality rates declined in men – but increased for women.

The number of women who have their children removed due to drug and alcohol use is increasing.

• This means women are rightly frightened of accessing treatment and broader healthcare that could prevent families being separated and
• The removal of children creates a cycle of intergenerational devastation which continues ongoing high costs across all services including statutory.

Therefore, we need strong leadership from the new Government to support the women’s agenda to ensure that:

• Specialist women’s drug and alcohol provision is available to all women as a right, irrespective of treatment delivery type or geography.
  • This means access to gender specific (and women only) services and spaces right across the full range of treatment settings, including inpatient detoxification, residential treatment, and community service delivery
• Pathways into services support all women in a non-stigmatising way to get the healthcare they need
• The voices of women are heard and inform the way systems and services are designed and delivered.

Here are our 3 recommendations for a new government:

1. Recognise the distinct treatment needs of women
2. Ensure systems work to prevent further harm to women and their families
3. Improve the evidence base for what works for women