Lewisham Addiction Treatment Services Cut By Over £1m In Five Years

Lewisham Council has cut its funding for drug and alcohol addiction treatment services by over £1 million in the past five years. 

Spending on treatment for people struggling with addiction has been reduced by the council from £4.9 million in 2015/16 to £3.8 million in 2019/20.

The Lewisham Primary Care Recovery Service run by Humankind, formerly Blenheim, provides opioid substitute therapy, community detox and interventions to those recovering from substance misuse. 

Councillor Chris Best, Deputy Mayor and Cabinet Member for Health and Adult Social Care said: 

“Austerity has been extremely difficult, council budgets have been slashed massively and substance misuse has been no different. 

“Cuts have been severe across the full range of services we fund, and the cuts to substance misuse have been at a similar level to those to other service areas. 

“These cuts have mainly been managed by the reduction of council staff and the reconfiguration of Lewisham’s treatment system. This has of course had impacts on service delivery, but we have worked closely with our providers to manage this as well as possible.

“Despite these major cuts Lewisham Council continues to achieve some of the best outcomes in the whole of London.”

The data was sourced via a Freedom of Information request submitted by the media literacy charity The Student View.