HRB evidence review on service user participation in the design and delivery of drug treatment, recovery, and harm reduction services

Tender description

1. Health Research Board The Health Research Board’s mission is to improve people’s health, patient care, and health service delivery by: • Leading and supporting excellent research by outstanding people within a coherent health research system; and • Generating knowledge and promoting its application in policy and practice. The Health Research Board (HRB) is a research organisation. One of its areas of expertise is alcohol and other drugs, and it holds two national information systems on the topic: the National Drug Related Deaths Index and the National Drug Treatment Reporting System. It also hosts the National Drugs Library, which is an information resource that supports researchers, policy makers, educators, and practitioners who are working to develop the knowledge base around drug, alcohol, and tobacco use in Ireland. 2. Background to research The importance of service user participation in the planning, design, and delivery of drug treatment, rehabilitation, recovery, and harm reduction services has been a consistent theme in drug policy for several decades. Facilitating the involvement of service users and their families is identified as a core objective of drugs policy in the National Drugs Strategy 1. Action 4.2.44 of the Strategy requires the Department of Health to: Promote the participation of service users and their families, including those in recovery, in local, regional and national decision-making structures and networks in order to facilitate their involvement in the design, planning and development of services and policies. The National Drugs Strategy defines the term ‘service users’ broadly to include the families of people who use drugs and potential users of services who have not yet engaged with treatment or other support services. The strategy frames its user participation objectives in the wider context of national standards for health care, as set out in National standards for safer better healthcare.